Corporators’ Assessment: BJP ranks 1st, ally Sena 4th in NGO report

The BJP has scored 61.03 per cent, followed by the Samajwadi Party at 59.60 per cent, the Nationalist Congress Party at 59.56 per cent and the Sena at 59.17 per cent.

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The average party scores are based on the performance of the corporators on parameters like attendance, number of questions asked, importance of questions, quality of questions, criminal record, participation in discussions and their perceived performance by the residents. A survey of 22,850 residents was conducted by Hansa Research to judge public perception of the councillors’ work.

Dr Anuradha Pednekar, a senior Sena corporator and a standing committee member said, “We have not been given the report, so it would be difficult to comment on it without studying it. We do not know the kind of criteria set by the organisation for assessing parties.” BJP group leaders in BMC, Manoj Kotak said, “We have to study the report. If the NGO has ranked us at one then it only motivates us to improvise and provide better services to people.”

Interestingly, BJP corporator Sunita Yadav is also ranked first among 220 corporators, who is followed by two Congress corporators and Sena councillor Hemangi Worlikar at the fourth position. According to the data, the average committee meeting attendance of corporators has also gone down to 68 per cent in 2014-15, from 75 per cent a year before and 81 per cent in 2012-13, the year the corporators were elected.

Nitai Mehta, managing trustee of the foundation, said, “The performance of the party shows that they are probably not raising the right questions in the various committee meetings. Though enthusiastic in the first year when they are elected, we have seen a general dip in attendance in the second and third years of their tenure.”

Another indicator of the corporators’ dismal performance is the data on the average number of questions raised by them in various civic meetings. In important decision-making committees like standing and improvements, councillors have raised just one or two questions per meeting, respectively. In the general body meetings, which brings all the corporators under a single-roof, only 11 questions are raised on an average in every meeting.

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