Performance survey: Top three councillors are women

A performance report card of municipal councillors of the three civic bodies released by Praja Foundation, a non partisan orgnaisation, revealed that all the top three performers are women councillors, two from BJP, and one from Congress.

Interestingly, BJP, which is ruling the three civic bodies, came second behind NCP among the three top performing political parties. As per the report, Rajni Mamtani of BJP topped the list with a score of 72.41 per cent from South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), Seema Taihra of Congress came second in the performance report with 69.78 per cent score and another BJP councillor in the SDMC, Simmi Jain, secured third position with 69.46 per cent in 2015-2016.

The least performing three councillors are Kamal (21.55 per cent) and Praveen (26. 97 per cent) from East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) and Satwinder Kaur Sirsa (31.86 per cent) from SDMC in 2015-2016.

The top three performing political parties (with at least five members in municipal corporations) are NCP (57.18 per cent) followed by BJP (57.05 per cent) and Congress (55.48 per cent).

Reports found that the “ward committees,” the most immediate link of the public grievance redressal system where in the councillors can find effective solutions for local issues, has been neglected by the elected members. “This forum is widely neglected as the average attendance in ward committees was as low as 61.15 per cent across Delhi. While in the ‘weakest’ of the three corporations, East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), was as low as 55.87 per cent,” said the project director of Praja Foundation, Milind Mhaske. According to the report, the total number of issues raised is 18,055 by the councillors. Every councillor has been graded either E or F on the quality of the issues raised, which is less than 50 per cent.

“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 372 times.

Similar to this, regarding the pressing issue of mosquito menace, 10,286 complaints were filed and only 247 issues were raised by the councillors,” said the report.

The report also pointed out that eight councillors — 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 the year 2015-2016.