68% of Mumbai’s citizens say quality of life has improved under BJP-Shiv Sena govt

A survey by NGO Praja Foundation says there is an 8% rise in people’s perceived quality of life between 2014 and 2019. MLAs’ performance has also improved.

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Mumbai: Less than two months before the Maharashtra assembly elections, a survey by a Mumbai-based non-profit organisation has shown that there has been an improvement in people’s perception of the quality of life in 2019 — the final year of the BJP-Shiv Sena government — as compared to 2014, the last under the Congress-NCP government.

As per the survey, 68 per cent people surveyed reported an improvement in their perceived quality of life in 2019 as against 60 per cent in 2014.

The findings by Praja Foundation, which has been conducting such surveys and assessing the performance of Mumbai’s MLAs for the past eight years, are based on a sample size of 22,845 people spread across the city’s 36 assembly constituencies.

The perceived accessibility of the MLAs in the current term has also gone up, with 60 per cent of respondents saying their legislators are accessible, compared to 33 per cent in 2014. Legislators are also perceived to be less corrupt now, with the ‘perceived corruption’ index having plummeted to 15 per cent in 2019 from 57 per cent in 2014.

Of Mumbai’s 36 MLAs, 15 belong to the BJP, 14 to its ally Shiv Sena, five to the Congress and one each to the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and the Samajwadi Party. The Praja report, however, focuses on 32 MLAs, excluding the four who are ministers — BJP’s Vinod Tawde, Prakash Mehta and Vidya Thakur, and Shiv Sena’s Ravindra Waikar.

Quality of life linked to MLA performance

The report notes that the improvement in the perceived quality of life in the city is linked to the fact that the performance of Mumbai’s MLAs in this assembly has been better than the previous one on most counts.

“If we compare the current performance of MLAs compared to the last term, MLA scores have improved from 59 per cent in 2014 to 64 per cent in 2019… Over the past eight years that we have been doing such a survey, we have been seeing a correlation between good performance of MLAs and quality of life as perceived by the people,” said Milind Mhaske, director, Praja Foundation.

While calculating the scores, Praja has given a 52 per cent weightage to data on the MLAs’ attendance, number and quality of questions asked, and usage of local area development funds, and a 40 per cent weightage to data obtained through the citizens’ survey on the perceived accessibility of their MLAs, performance, corruption and satisfaction with their quality of life, or services provided by the government.

To emphasise the link between MLA performance and quality of life, Praja’s report compares the six best-performing legislators’ constituencies — Worli, Mumbadevi, Malad West, Dindoshi, Dahisar and Kandivli East — against the six worst.

Ninety-two per cent of the people in the constituencies of the six best-performing MLAs said their quality of life was better, while the number for the bottom six was 44 per cent.

The BJP, Shiv Sena and Congress hold two each of the six ‘best’ constituencies.

Steep drop in questions raised

While the performance of MLAs has improved on most counts, there has been a steep drop in how active Mumbai’s MLAs have been in the state legislature.

From the winter session of 2014 to the winter session of 2018, the 32 MLAs under the scanner asked 22,345 questions, compared to the 38,618 questions their predecessors asked between the 2009 winter session and the 2014 monsoon session.

The Congress’ five MLAs have been the most active in this term, having asked a total of 9,713 questions, an average of 1,943 questions per legislator.