Praja Issued report card of Delhi's Councillors

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 Vivek Sharma,New Delhi

 Praja Foundation, a non-partisan organisation working towards enabling accountable governance, has released its first annual report card of the performance of Councillors’ (Members of Delhi Municipal Corporation). With this Report Card, the Foundation aims to create awareness and mobilize action by the government and elected representatives specifically with regard to increasing accountability governance. 

In his opening remarks, Nitai Mehta, founding trustee, Praja Foundation says: “With the fast growing urban population in India, there is a need for better urban governance focusing on simplifying governance for the citizens. Praja aims to use this report card as a means to initiate accountability amongst the elected representatives.” 

Praja’s report card paradigms are based on an objective and comprehensive scale, which includes parameters like: attendance in the corporation and the committee meetings, the number of questions (issues) that she/he has raised in all legislative forums, utilization of budget, educational qualification, criminal records, income tax reports, and the perception/impression of the people in her/his constituency. 

Giving an example from the current Report Card to explain, Milind Mhaske, Project Director, Praja Foundation adds: “When we look at the data of Issues raised by the Municipal Councillors and compare them with the relevance to people’s Issues and Complaints we find a huge disconnect. A vast majority of issues raised have NO connection between what are the problems of the people and what our elected representatives are discussing in the Forum that they have been elected to.” 

Emphasizing on Delhi councillors neglecting the forum of decentralised governance, to Mhaske added, “Ward Committees are the most immediate link of the public grievance redressal system where in the Councillors can find effective solutions for local issues. However, this forum is widely neglected as the average attendance in ward committees was as low as 61.15% across Delhi. While, in the ‘weakest’ of the three Corporations, EDMC, it was low as 55.87%. 

•Top 3 performers are Rajni Mamtani(72.41%)from SDMC, Seema Taihra(69.78%) from NDMC and Simmi Jain(69.46%) from SDMC in 2015-2016 

• Bottom 3 performers Kamal(21.55%) from EDMC, Parveen(26.97%) from EDMC and Satwinder Kaur Sirsa(31.86%) from SDMC in 2015-2016 

• Top 3 performing political parties (with at least five members in MCDs) are NCP at (57.18%) followed by BJP at (57.05%) and INC (55.48%) 2015-2016 

• Overall average score of male councillors is 56.85% and the overall average score of female councillors is 54.87% in 2015-2016 

• Total Number of Issues Raised 18,055 

• 8 Councillors have not raised a single issue in 2015-2016

Even though the Total Number of Issues Raised is 18,055 by the councillors, every councillor has been graded either E or F i.e. less than 50% on quality of issues raised. An example of this is that from April 2015 to March 2016 (collectively in all the corporation and committee meetings) 20,239 complaints were made on Nuisance caused by stray animals but the Issue has only been raised only 372 times. Similar to this, the pressing issue of Mosquito menace, 10,286 complaints were filed and only 247 issues were raised by the Councillors. However, there are certain Councillors like Reeta (Bakhtawarpur), Manisha Jasbir Karala (Karala), Satwinder Kaur Sirsa (Punjabi Bagh), Ankita Saini (Haus Khaz), Neetu (Sarita Vihar),Kamal (Trilokpuri), Devendra Kumar (Mayur Vihar Ph-II) and Parveen (Mustafabad) have not even raised a single issue in any corporation and committee meeting in the year 2015-2016. 

Considering the above pointers, in conclusion, Mehta comments, “We hope that the Report can become a bench mark of Performance for our elected representatives which can lead them to be more responsive and accountable to the needs of the Citizens of Delhi. The electoral verdict of the next year, 2017 by the people of Delhi should reflect an intense desire for change and getting better Councillors. One hopes that for the people of Delhi and more importantly for better Urban Governance in Delhi, 2017 can be the year of change. ”

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