In an acute financial crisis such as the one the BMC is currently facing, you would have expected all corporators and heads of various committees to only think of ways to increase revenue. But Ramakant Rahate, who chairs the law committee, has other priorities. Rahate has directed the BMC’s roads department to waive payments due from a pay-and-park contractors.
Wagheshwari Sweets and Fast Food is a company that holds contracts to run several pay-and-park sites in the city. The company was allotted 14 sites for a year. But it gave up one site four months before expiry of the contract, that too without informing the roads department or the local ward office.
The contractor claimed that to begin with only 10 of the 14 allotted sites where handed over to him. Of these, he gave up one site four months ahead of time and is now asking for the deposit.
The BMC refused to return the money, saying the contractor’s early pullout was none of its concern and he would have to pay the amount for the entire period of the contract.
The contractor then approached Rahate, who wrote a letter to the roads department to return the deposit and reduce the charges of the pay-and-park site.
The BMC has been asking the contractor to pay up Rs17 lakh, but the latter is unwilling. “The contractor has deposited Rs2 crore with the BMC in the form of a bank guarantee,” a source from the roads department said. “Now the BMC will adjust the charges due from him from this deposit.”
The source said Rahate called the roads department officials to his cabin for a meeting on February 9 and tried to push them to favour the contractor.
The law committee chairperson said, “The contractor wrote a letter to me about the injustice. I only held a meeting with officials of theroads department, that’s all. I did not try to pressurise any official.”
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