Ruckus marked second meeting of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) Standing Committee as Opposition Congress corporators claimed that Chairperson rushed through the meeting agenda within 3 minutes to prevent discussion on non-conduct of internal audit in the civic body. Accusing the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of trying to suppress serious breach of rules on part of civic administration, Abhijit Jha, a studied and vociferous member of Standing Committee, said the conduct of Chairperson was surely anti-democratic. The four Congress members were supported by Indian Union Muslim League’s (IUML) Aslam Khan who too voiced dissent at the high-handedness of suppressing voices of Opposition members.

 

Admitted that BJP has majority, it has got 11 members in Standing Committee, but each member has right to place his opinion, and Jha questioned as to why ruling party is afraid of fixing responsibility on civic body officials for not conducting Internal Audit, Jha questioned, while sharing his views with newspersons post meeting. As per sections 103 and 104 of Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act, Internal Audit is compulsory, its scrutiny of financial expenditure undertaken by different department of NMC. Yet, when Jha said, he tried to initiate discussion, the Chairperson called the five issues listed on the agenda and said they were approved and adjourned the meeting. The first time corporator from Gittikhadan area, say, they were in awe of deep financial knowledge of Standing Committee Chairperson, but in the end, it seems top party bosses’ word seemed to have prevailed and hence, no discussion on the important aspect of transparency was allowed.

 

In fact, the senior corporator of BJP Adv Sanjay Balpande himself raised the issue of non-conduct of internal audit. Yet, it seems, something is fishy and hence, no discussion was allowed, and one does not know with BJP having brute majority in Standing Committee, why is it averse to questioning the officials of NMC. The Rules are quite clear. Every department’s expenditure has to be audited and if not done, then same is financial impropriety and responsibility in such case has to be fixed. Jha said, the big talks of transparency governance now sound hollow as BJP backtracked on its word by preventing discussion on internal audit matter. It’s a breakdown on compliance and is not Standing Committee duty bound to scrutinise the issue, asked the Congress young turk.

 

River Cleaning: Jha said a whopping Rs 50 crore was spent by NMC during last five-year on annual river cleaning exercise. On the question, the Mechanical Workshop shared data that reveals annually 25 tippers, equal number of JCB and pokelain were utilised and civic body said they spent Rs 10 crore annually, which the Congress corporator said, could have been purchased directly and saved on public funds. Below Rate Tender: The Standing Committee Chairperson also did not allow discussion the last meeting issue of inquiry report into submission of low rate tenders. The Chief Engineer, when questioned, said their own team cross verifies the quality issue and ruled out any need for third party audit. Jha said, this is quite strange, as those who are in dock would themselves examine the quality. He claimed that a simple look at data about below rate tenders shows that only two to three contractors have formed a coterie and disturbed the contracts among themselves.