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Audit Report: Since 1982, files related to Rs 527 crore ‘missing’

PCMC chief directs officials to comply with requirements on priority.

Audit report, PCMC, PCMC audit report, Padmashree Taldekar, pune news, city news, locla news, pune newsline, Indian Express

An audit report tabled in the standing committee of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has pointed out that documents related to projects and transactions amounting to around Rs 527 crore since 1982-the year Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation was set up-are “missing” from the civic offices. The figure is likely to climb further as audit of 24 departments is yet to be done, said the PCMC chief auditor.

The audit report states that auditors raised 1.12 lakh objections in the past three decades and of these PCMC officers replied to 81,700 but are yet to comply with the requirements on 30,000 objections. “It’s not that officials are not complying with requirements… they have produced documents and files sought by auditors, but there still are 30,000 objections that remain to be complied with,” said PCMC chief auditor Padmashree Taldekar.

The audit report states that in the past three decades, PCMC officials could produce files and documents related to objections raised on transactions related to Rs 252 crore spent by the civic body.

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Taldekar explained that since 1982, files or documents related to Rs 780 crore had not been produced by the administration but follow up action yielded results. “Because of the follow up by auditors, officials complied with the demands and furnished papers related to Rs 253 crore. As of now, files and documents related to Rs 527 crore need to be produced by officials.”

“Officials have also produced part of the documents related to a spending of Rs 143 crore. That remains to be complied with fully,” said Taldekar.

But there is an amount of Rs 47 crore which either contractors or civic officials will have pay and there is no getting away from it, officials revealed.

“We found certain violations related to Rs 93 crore. Of this, Rs 46 crore have been paid to the civic treasury. The remaining Rs 47 crore will have to be paid primarily by contractors or officials, whoever is found responsible…,” auditors said.

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They said that 90 departments could not produce documents/files related to Rs 527 crore. “There are in all 114 departments in PCMC. We have not yet taken up the audit of another 24 departments which means the amount is certain to go up from Rs 527 crore,” said Taldekar.

Last week, Pune Newsline had highlighted the audit of three years-2005 to 2008-that revealed files/documents related to Rs 394 crore were missing.

PCMC commissioner Rajeev Jadhav had promised to hold an emergency meeting to direct officials to comply with the audit requirement.

On Monday morning, he held the meeting where 40 heads of various departments were present. Jadhav has directed heads of all the departments to comply with the audit requirement as early as possible.

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“The commissioner told the department heads to provide the documents and files that have been sought by the audit department on priority,” said Taldekar.

In 1999, civic activist Maruti Bhapkar had filed a public interest litigation regarding “expenditure mess” in the PCMC.

In 2001, the Bombay High Court passed strictures against PCMC and asked the state government as to why PCMC should not be dissolved.

“The irony is that nothing has changed with PCMC all these years,” said Bhapkar who is now a political leader.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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