BMC taking the low road to progress?

Municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte may not be able to explain why many of the civic body's projects are in a state of neglect or oblivion or what lags it; but for the ordinary taxpayer, the reasons are an open secret. Corrupt civic officials, influential politicians, cartels of contractors, lack of accountability on part of the administration and absence of third-party audits, they feel, are turning the city of dreams into a complete mess.

The lackadaisical attitude of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) babus is one of the major reasons for the delay in completing many of the projects. This, coupled with corruption, results in civic body ending up using only 4-40 per cent of the funds for the capital works or the infrastructure works in the city every year.

For the last three years, the civic body has been promising world class roads, bridges, clean and safe drinking water, enough toilets – so that people don’t squat on road, better parking facilities, getting rid of hoardings and posters, better gardens and adequate playgrounds among other things. Projects are delayed beyond the time which not only aggravates civic issues further, but also escalates cost.

Seated in their air-conditioned offices, they are content at only doing the macro-level planning till the situation gets out of their hands. The road to non-completion of projects is laced with corruption, sabotaging of e-tendering process, lack of planning, absence of periodic review system and the third-party auditing, complicated with constant political interference. Third-party consultants are not appointed as both the municipal administration and contractors fear their wrongdoings will be exposed.

Above all, there is a leadership vacuum at the top level in the civic administration. Even the ruling party fails to monitor the civic body's performance like a responsible trustee. Vested interests have eroded the system and bureaucrats are puppets in their hands. There is no effort to develop the in-house capacity of the administration by roping in skilled professionals. Civic sources say this is just the tip of the iceberg. “The delay in projects is not because of clearing a file and then forgetting about it. It’s a vicious circle which has no start or end,” said a senior retired civic official of the BMC.

Several senior corporators like Rais Shaikh from Samajwadi Party, Dilip Patel, and Manoj Kotak from BJP have vociferously raised objections about the tardy execution of the projects. “Tender conditions are created to favour a particular contractor. And then the fights between two parties begin. Contractors approach court, resulting in further delays. However, till the time the matter is resolved the files lie with the procurement redressal committee. Can anyone believe that huge projects, which would benefit tax-payers and could make their daily life easy, are biting dust mainly because there is no will,” asks Rais Shaikh.

MNS leader in the BMC, Sandeep Deshpande, admitted that if bureaucrats were made accountable, the problems would have been half-solved. “The decisions for big projects are taken in lesser time, but no senior official is ready to get into the details. Keeping away politics, I must say that ruling party has either no control over the civic administration or is it in the know of what’s happening with these projects,” said Deshpande.

Major civic projects in limbo

1. Mini fire stations:
In order to reduce response time in any emergency, the Mumbai fire brigade has proposed 10 mini fire stations at strategic locations. Rs 8 crore was allocated for this project. For general improvements all through the department, a provision of Rs 357 crore has been set aside. In the first phase, BMC has planned around 10 mini fire stations across the city, including four in the island city, and three each in the eastern and the western suburbs. The mini fire engines were supposed to be designed to carry 300 litre of water as against 4,500 litre in regular fire engines. The project has got delayed for over eight months now.

2. Civic amenities in private layouts:
In the last budget, it was revealed that the BMC will clean all private layouts, including those under MHADA, MMRDA, Public Works departments. A policy on that is yet to be framed.

3. Repair of BMC properties:
Red-faced after the collapse of BMC's Babu Genu building at Mazgaon that claimed 61 lives last year, the BMC has set aside Rs 541.5 crore in its budget to repair and reconstruct BMC properties. This year, too, the BMC has set aside Rs 531.5 crore for the work.

4. Byculla zoo:
The master (layout) plan for the zoo was approved in December 2012, but the progress has been slow. The idea was to restore the animal park and set up critical facilities to care for the animals in a time-bound programme, but the work is moving at a snail’s pace, because of which, the work got delayed by an additional near two years and is now expected to be completed by December 2016. The civic body’s plan to extend the zoo at Aarey colony is meeting with stiff opposition from environment activists and local people.

5. Brimstoward project:
The implementation of Brihanmumbai Storm Water Drain project by BMC initiated in 2005 was delayed, resulting in huge cost escalation. Even though civic authorities claimed that 70 per cent of the work has been completed, of the 58 works only 26 have been completed so far. Tenders are yet to be invited for constructing storm water pumping stations at Mahul, Mogra and Dadar Mahim Diversion work.