Elected Councilors - Can they be made more effective & accountable?

In Bangalore, we just had one more election, but a very important one at that. It was an election to select the local councilors. It saw a lot of money being spent (invested?) by the wannabe councilors and they would be spending the next five years maximizing their returns on their investment. If they have some time left, they will attend to the civic problems as well. We seem to be in a very sorry state. What can be done to improve things, for the better? Let us first look at the root cause of the problem and see if any remedies are possible.

To start with, we should understand what the local councilor (corporator) is responsible for. He / she is responsible for the basic amenities of approximately 20,000-30,000 people. If any of these folks have problems with basic infrastructure or services provided by the city corporation, they turn to the councilor for help in resolving the issue. Effectively, the councilor is the admin manager for a corporation with 20,000 employees.

What does the councilor get for being the admin manager for a 20,000 member organization? pittance. He / she gets a meager sitting allowance (Rs.500) for attending council meetings and some other benefits like telephone & some other small allowance. So, in a way, the councilor is doing social service with near-zero official compensation. What do they do to work around this? They find other ways of making money. If a seasoned professional wants to become a councilor to serve people, he / she should have enough money to sustain assuming he / she wants to remain a honest councilor.

In summary, the problem is with the system and not with the people. Unless we fix the system to properly compensate the councilors for the work they do, professionals will not contest the elections as they have no incentive to do so. The only remedy is to have knowledgeable people filing PILs (Public Interest Litigation) to have the courts render judgments to fix the system. Otherwise, we will keep complaining about corruption, nepotism, non-accountability etc.