Women in BMC: The numbers have to be meaningful
by Indiaspend. But, the study found, women corporators attended only as many meetings as the men did, asked significantly fewer questions than them in the House, and spent a similar amount of allocated funds in their constituencies as the men did.
While some women coporators worked in a focussed manner to improve the standard of civic amenities in their wards, the majority of women corporators worked by their party’s agenda and instructions from party bosses who were mostly men. On major policy issues and micro projects that impact the lives of women, these women’s voices were rarely heard, if at all.
On issues such as women’s safety in public places, the number and quality of public and community toilets for women, the provision of support facilities such as daycare centres for working women, providing civic amenities for informal workers a large part of who are women, gender auditing of major infrastructure projects in the BMC’S domain, planning for a gender-just Mumbai in the Development Plan 2014-34 and so on, women corporators were either silent or their words did not carry weight. In fact on at least two issues – the provision of public restrooms or toilets, and gender provisions in the Development Plan – voluntary organisations and women’s groups had more influence on BMC’S decisions and policies than women corporators did. Such was the level of discourse among women corporators on issues that one of them had famously – and laughably – demanded that barelyclothed mannequins be removed from shopfronts on pavements to improve safety for women in public places.
A healthy political representation by women is advancement over low or no representation. But this representation has to be meaningful too. Women corporators have work in a focussed way to make Mumbai more gender-friendly and genderjust so that more women join the formal workforce, those in the informal sectors have adequate civic amenities, the quality of life improves and the city becomes safer for all.