Corporators will finally get some recognition as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is planning to evaluate their performance and felicitate at least five of them with awards for their public works.
The felicitation proposal was put up by former Shiv Sena corporator Manmohan Chonkar and was discussed in the civic law committee meeting on Saturday. While the civic administration expressed its inability to implement the proposal due to lack of manpower, the corporators insisted on it by asking officials to work on it.
In his notice of motion, Mr Chonkar had said, “The civic body felicitates artists for the excellence in their respective field or celebrities for their contribution to the society. The corporators work for the public day in and day out, and they also raise several issues in the civic house for people’s welfare. Hence, the BMC should felicitate at least five corporators every year by evaluating their performance.”
However, the civic administration opposed the proposal citing the lack of manpower. A senior civic official said, “To survey and evaluate the performance of 227 corporators every year, a special system is required with trained manpower. The parameters for evaluating corporator’s work are also not been listed yet. And there is no such provision for this in BMC rules. Apart from this, the evaluation of corporators’ work cannot be done independently. It will require the participation of administration, mayor, group leaders, ward officers, NGOs, social organisations and citizens too.”
Meanwhile, law committee chairman Raju Pednekar said, “The awards will be an added incentive for corporators to work better for people. If an NGO like Praja Foundation can carry out the evaluation of corporators’ work, then it should not be a problem for the BMC given its huge network.”
“We have asked the civic body to either appoint a separate agency or evaluate corporator’s performance on its own,” he added.