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A citizens’ group in Mumbai has prepared report cards of corporators that can be assessed as a mobile phone app in the run up to the upcoming civic polls in the metropolis.
It has the performance report of 56 corporators of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and efforts are on to get the assessment of more elected representatives included with public participation, Anand Bhandare, coordinator of ‘Nagarikayan Research Centre’ told PTI on Thursday.
“We have launched the ‘My Corporator’ (Majha Nagarsevek) app. The report cards were prepared under the ‘My Ward, My Corporator’ project that began in 2016. I have been working on this app for six years,” he said.
The app is available in Marathi and English on the Android platform and citizens can download it from Google Playstore, while efforts are on to make it compatible with the iOS platform as well, he added.
“We are looking at increasing public participation in the project by conducting workshops in various civic wards, reaching out through Facebook and other social media platforms,” Bhandare, a mechanical engineer by qualification,
“I prepared a report card of corporators of my area using Right to Information Act. I then prepared a RTI form for others to make reports. I guide those who want to prepare such reports of corporators to enlighten people,” he added.
Information obtained through RTI, like attendance in civic and committee meetings, questions asked, motions filed, fund utilisation details etc, is converted into tabular form, observations are added and a report card is prepared, which is uploaded on the app so that people can make informed choices, Bhandare said.
“RTI forms to gather such details, videos for better understanding of civic information have been made available. The app also has a link to request a report card of a corporator, while another link is for public surveys,” he said.
Information obtained through RTI is verified by site visits, photographs etc by a network of volunteers, he said, adding the work of elected and nominated corporators as well as independent experts on various civic committees is evaluated.
“Corporators with 70 per cent attendance will have a green colour code in their performance report. It will be blue for those in the 40 per cent to 70 per cent bracket and grey for those with less than 40 per cent attendance,” Bhandare said.
