Mumbai Civic Body Sanctions Rs 500 Crore For Mumbai Upgrade, Fund Approved Only For Ruling BJP (image-pixabay)
Mumbai the financial capital of India has not held its civic body election for the past two years. From the investigation of Indian Express, it was found that only the MLAs from the ruling BJP-Shinde Shiva Sena received the funds from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Cooperation (BMC) for civic works.
Mumbai in total has 36 MLAs, of which 21 of them belong to the ruling BJP-Shinde Shiva Sena alliance and 15 are from Opposition. From the official records obtained under the Right to Information Act by media outlet, it has been found under the February 2023 policy, 21 ruling alliance MLAs sought and got funds till December 2023. Meanwhile, in stark contrast, not one of the opposition MLAs got any money even though 11 of them have requested the funds.
The fund if sanctioned can be used for various development works, from the repair of the drain in Dharavi to the beautification of a park in Sewari to the installation of paver blocks in Satyanarayan Chawl.
The region that falls under the BMC’s jurisdiction has 36 MLAs. 15 members belong to the BJP, six to the Eknath Shinde-Shiva Sena, nine to the UBT Shiva Sena, four to the Congress, and one each of the Nationalist Congress part and Samajwadi party.
The budget was presented on February 4, the BMC passed a resolution saying funds to run the city would be routed through Mumbai’s 36 MLAs. But these are the works that have to be undertaken by the 227 elected BMC corporators.
The approval note that followed the February 2023 resolution said, “A large number of letters have been received from MLAs/MPs for providing funds for various development works, infrastructural works, beautification work etc within their respective constituencies. Therefore, an approval was given for this new provision by the administrator on February 16, 2023.”
As per the provision, an amount of Rs 1,260 crore was sanctioned by the civic body, allocating an amount of Rs 35 crore to each MLA for civic works that have to be carried out in each constituency. This amount is around 2.5 percent of the Rs 52,619 crore BMC budget.
However, from the amount allocated between February 2023 and December 31, 2023, Municipal Commissioner and Administrator I S Chahal disbursed Rs 500.58 crore, all to MLAs belonging to the ruling party, while the opposition got null.
The Maharashtra government has appointed Guardian ministers for each district to oversee the planning and development of the district. They are authorized to clear proposals from MLAs seeking funds for development works in their respective constituencies. They will forward the cleared proposals to the BMC, which will then disburse the funds. Since this policy was implemented, there is no provision for the legislators to withdraw money from the civic body’s corpus.
The data obtained from the media outlet showed that on May 11, 2023, BJP’s Mulund MLA, Mihir Kotecha, wrote to Guardian Minister Lodha seeking Rs 26.34 crore for carrying out civic works. On May 22, Lodha wrote to Administrator Chahal directing him to immediately disburse Rs 26 crore to the MLA. The BMC approved the funds, saying the remaining 20 percent would be given once the work began.
Meanwhile, Dharavi MLA and Congress’s Mumbai chief Varsha Gaikwad wrote to Kesarkar in March 2023 seeking Rs 26.51 crore. However, the BMC has yet to disburse the funds. This is one example among many.
From the documents acquired by Indian Express, they found that some of the fund requests from opposition MLAs to Guardian ministers were yet to be cleared and forwarded to the BMC. On the other hand, the requests from the MLAs belonging to the BJP were cleared by the chief minister and two Guardian ministers.
And in the case of their constituency, the guardian minister acquired the fund directly.
