Newly elected mayor ranked 1 in NGO’s report card

Two days after being elected the Mayor of the city, first time corporator Snehal Ambekar was on Thursday ranked first among 227 corporators in a report card on performance of municipal councillors released by NGO Praja Foundation, an organisation that work towards increasing accountability among the elected representatives in the city. Ambekar, who scored 78.46 out of 100, was ranked 44 in 2013. The corporators have been judged on attendance, number of questions asked, importance of questions, quality of questions, criminal record and perceived performance. A survey of 22,580 citizens was conducted by Hansa Research to judge public perception of councillors’ work.

“The report is an analysis of the performance of the councillors for financial year 2013-14. Therefore, there is no connection between the mayor’s candidature and the report. It is a mere co-incidence,” said Nitai Mehta, Managing Trustee of the NGO.

As per the report, Ambekar has scored a grade ‘A’ (between 80 and 100 per cent) in attendance and the corporator with the least criminal record, and a ‘B’ (between 70 and 80 per cent) in the number of questions she asked and the quality of questions. “While I took time in my first year as a corporator to know people in my ward and their issues, it became much easier in the second year once I got acquainted with them and could solve their problems too,” said Ambekar. The report notes a 27 per cent increase in the number of questions asked by corporators. While 2,232 questions were asked by municipal councillors between 2012-13,  2,835 questions were asked between 2013-14.