The Indian Express              02.08.2013

Under fire, BMC wants Swiss auditors out

The civic administration had proposed to reappoint the Swiss firm
for Rs 11 crore for the third consecutive year since 2011. Sending back
the proposal, standing committee chairman Rahul Shewale shifted the
blame for bad roads on the firm and demanded that the civic
administration hold a tendering procedure to appoint another third party
auditor for BMC roads.

“SGS has been the third party quality auditor for the last two
years. Yet the fact that the road condition has worsened reflects on the
quality of the firm’s report,” Shewale said.

BJP member of the committee Manoj Kotak said, “If the corporation
has fixed the responsibility for maintaining the quality of roads on
SGS, the quality should have improved in the last two years. However,
that has not happened, so the company should not be reappointed unless
the corporation clearly fixes responsibility for bad roads on certain
engineers or officers.”

Congress corporator and member of the standing committee Asif
Zakaria demanded a white paper from the civic administration detailing
the work carried out by contractors related to road works in the last
one year.

“There is no accountability of these companies. BMC pays them
without fail yet people continue to suffer because of poor quality of
work,” Zakaria said.

In early 2012, a PIL was filed in Bombay High Court against the
civic body for appointing SGS as its road works auditor for roughly Rs 7
crore without inviting bids. However the court ruled in favour of the
corporation saying, “Such an order, if passed, may completely thwart the
intention of BMC to appoint an authority to assess its own performance
and would go against public interest.”

Last week, the standing committee, facing flak for poor quality road
works, blamed former additional municipal commissioner Aseem Gupta, then
in-charge of the roads department, for the city’s bad roads. Gupta, now
Thane municipal commissioner, said road works had been intentionally
delayed by certain parties in the corporation. “Third party audits were
introduced during my tenure in BMC and I believe they are an extremely
important factor for ensuring quality of road works. This aspect of road
works should by no means be scrapped if the road quality in Mumbai is
to be improved,” he had said.