MCD councillors raised issues 'inadequately' compared to complaints lodged by people: claims NGO

Councillors in the three municipal corporations in Delhi raised local issues in the House which were commensurately "inadequate" compared to the complaints filed by local residents in the year 2018, an NGO claimed on Wednesday.

At a press conference held here, the Mumbai-based Praja Foundation released a report card of Delhi municipal councillors for the period, April 2018 to March 2019.

Director of Praja Foundation, Milind Mhaske, told reporters that the councillors in total raised "19,422 issues" among which the working of the municipal system and its administration topped the list, followed by solid waste management and licencing, among other issues.

"We obtained through RTI the volume of complaints filed by people with the corporations, through helpline or physically at various offices. The total number of complaints in the year 2018, from January-December stood at 1,49,838 including all the three corporations -- NDMC, SDMC and EDMC," he said.

And, when the nature of issued raised in complaints was compared to the nature of issues raised by councillors in their respective Houses, "we found that they were commensurately inadequate," Mhaske alleged.

So, for the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, the quality of issue raised in the NDMC House by its councillors stood at 50.66 per cent and for the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) it was 47.16 per cent and for East Delhi Municipal Corporation it was 45.34 per cent, he claimed.

The civic bodies' officials or councillors were not immediately available for comments.

Delhi had a unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) till 2012 when it was trifurcated into NDMC, SDMC and EDMC, all led by the BJP.

Asked about the details of the total complaints received in 2018, a senior official of the NGO said, NDMC received 75,569 while SDMC got 48,657 and EDMC received 25,612.

The study did not include the mayors of the three corporations.

When asked why, Mhaske said, "We wanted to focus on councillors per se as mayors lead the corporation in the legislative domain and have other responsibilities".

Avtar Singh, a BJP councillor who was elected as a mayor in April, was adjudged the "top councillor" among the five best performers overall in the NDMC, while Balram Kumar Oberoi from SMDC and Govind Aggarwal of EDMC were ranked the best in their respective corporations.

Former North Delhi mayor Preety Agarwal and former East Delhi mayor Neema Bhagat figured in "bottom five" overall in their respective corporations.