Politicians in the country are evaluated once in five years: during elections. What if people didn’t have to wait that long to rate them? And what if the best of the lot can be awarded for her/his good work?
Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB), which has been at the forefront of movements such as the ‘Steel flyover beda’ and has taken up a campaign against the proposed 102-km network of elevated corridors, has come up with an initiative to empower people to rate their councillors and wards.
Promotional posters doing the rounds on social media make a case for such an initiative: “Did you ever rate a: restaurant, hotel, book, movie, smart phone? Why not rate your area on: footpaths, garbage, water supply, roads, public toilets?”
The larger aim, though, is to indirectly nudge more councillors to conduct ward committee meetings. There are two parts to this initiative: citizens have been asked to rate civic amenities, such as waste management, footpaths, tree cover, public toilets and water supply, in their ward.
But what will help councillors clinch the‘Namma Samithi Puraskara’ — the Councillor No. 1 Award — will be the efficacy in channelising and holding ward committee meetings. The survey is also expected to throw up details of how many wards are actually conducting the mandated meetings. One of the questions is: “How many ward committee meetings did your ward hold since December 2018? (this is the single biggest criteria for selecting winners)”
“Bengaluru started holding monthly ward committee meetings in December 2018 on the first Saturday of every month at the local ward office. While not all 198 wards are holding these meetings regularly, many are. We often criticise our politicians for bad roads, lack of water supply, mishandling of garbage. But many councillors are doing a good job,” says the CfB website.
The group is yet to reveal the timeline of the exercise, when the winner will be announced, and when the award will be presented.
