Three weeks after the corporation's term ended, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) administrator and municipal commissioner IS Chahal is yet to set up committees to clear financial proposals and take other policy decisions. While the BJP has called for transparency in the process and uploading of all the cleared proposals and decisions on the civic body website, it is learned that a scrutiny committee will be formed to be headed by the administrator to clear financial transactions similar to the statutory standing committee. Chahal said he will need another two to three days to set up the committees. Earlier, a committee consisting of four additional municipal commissioners were formed to assist the commissioner in the daily functions. Civic officials on condition of anonymity said, “It was indicated that a scrutiny committee will be set up to review the financial proposals and the administrator will take the final decision. However, there is no clarity yet. Also, there has been no problem yet as all the financial decisions, proposals for the current financial year were cleared. The issue will be from April 1 only. There is no clarity about the usage of corporators’ and development funds allotted to all the corporators every financial year." According to sources, three committees on the lines of statutory standing, improvement committees and a general body with additional and deputy municipal commissioners as its members, are likely to be set up. However, details of the committees' members and functioning have not been discussed with or communicated to junior officials in the civic body. Sources said the scrutiny committee is likely to function similar to the standing committee where proposals were tabled. Each department head is likely to present the case to the administrator and the concerned deputy municipal commissioner. Ward officers are likely to be invitees. The administrator will have the final say in approving a proposal. All committees namely the statutory standing committee, improvement and law committees which had corporators as their members, ceased on March 7. After winning the 2017 elections, the 227 corporators held their first general body meeting on March 8, 2017. Recently, administrator I S Chahal gave his nod to political parties to keep their offices open in the BMC so that citizens can approach them with civic issues in their areas. Former corporators from the Congress, BJP, Shiv Sena and Samajwadi Party had met Chahal requesting him to allow party offices to be kept open. In BMC headquarters, BJP, Shiv Sena, Congress, NCP and Samajwadi Party have their party offices. BJP MLA Yogesh Sagar, in a letter dated March 29 to commissioner Iqbal Chahal, has asked him to disclose all the financial proposals of the civic body to the public in order to prevent corruption and bring transparency. Sagar asked for the approved proposals to be uploaded on the BMC’s website for public scrutiny. “I read in the news that you will be appointing committees under officials to study financial proposals. However, in the past, it was observed that the BMC’s own system itself is corrupt. The citizens have already seen what happens in the Standing Committee. After the committee’s approval, the proposal comes to you for a final nod. Before issuing work orders, please put them on the website and on a display board in the headquarters so that people would know about them. The public scrutiny will help in bringing transparency in the system and make it corruption-free," read the letter.
