The performances of Delhi’s municipal corporation councillors fell in terms of attendance and three-fourth of the questions asked by them in the House were “poorly related” to citizens’ complaints in their constituencies, said Praja Foundation.
Praja Foundation released its third report card for the current term (2017-22) of Delhi municipal councillors elaborating on the performance and areas of improvement for local elected representatives (ERs) in Delhi.
“Councillors have been at the forefront of ground-level relief and intervention in the COVID-19 pandemic in many cities in India. Given the current structure of governance in Delhi, however, councillors have not been party to decision-making for the city in spite of being closest to the ground situation and having the knowledge of the needs of their constituents,” said Nitai Mehta, Founder and Managing Trustee, Praja Foundation.
“The performances of councillors have fallen in all three Corporations – 2019-20 being an election year. Attendance score fell in the North Corporation from 75.32% in 2017-18 to 66.38% in 2019-20, in SDMC from 75.10% to 66.61% and in EDMC from 81.83% to 71.27%, the highest fall ” said Milind Mhaske, Director, Praja Foundation.
From this year, the foundation said in a statement, Praja reworked its matrix to focus mainly upon the deliberative performance of councillors, as deliberative duties are the most important responsibility of any elected representative.
Overall questions raised by Councillors fell by 29% from 18,128 in 2017-18 to 12,879 in 2019-20. The highest fall was in North body, where number of questions raised fell by 35%, followed by SDMC (27% fall) and EDMC (16% fall).
According to Mr. Mhaske, seven Councillors asked zero questions in 2019-20, of which Parveen (EDMC) has not raised a single question in the entire term (from 2017), raising questions about their commitment to the deliberative process.
Councillors, the report stated, were not focusing on raising issues that fall under the obligatory duties under the MCD Act- 55 councillors (54%) in NDMC, 56 councillors (54%) in SDMC and 37 councillors (62%) in EDMC scored less than 50% in asking questions under their obligatory duties.
“Questions raised by Councillors did not match the complaints made by citizens in their constituencies – 74 councillors (73%) in North Corporation, 77 (75%) in SDMC and 44 (73%) in EDMC received poor score (less than 50%) in raising issues related to civic complaints made by the constituents,” Mr. Mhaske also said.
