The Indian Express           30.10.2013

RMC to publish its annual reports

For the first time in the last 13 years, Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) is all set to publish its annual report, giving an account of administrative initiatives and achievements of the civic body as well as making data available for future planning. Top civic officials on Friday finalised the draft report of RMC covering years from 2,000 onwards. The report runs into more than 200 pages. It gives accounts of activities and initiatives taken by 44 departments and branches of the civic body in the last 13 years. Civic officials said the report had been sent for printing and copies were likely to be available by the second week of November.

"Being a public body, the RMC tends to have a weak institutional memory. Some information about its dealing with outside agencies would be privy to certain officers and it gets lost with their transfer or departure from RMC. The annual administrative report is an effort to document such information, besides maintaining a record of the routine activity of the civic body," Municipal Commissioner Ajay Bhadu said on Tuesday.

The commissioner further said that with the administrative report, the civic body was also carrying out a census of RMC properties for updating its inventory. "From this year onwards, the RMC would compile its administrative report every year. Similarly, we shall also present annual outcome budget giving comprehensive detail of important projects. Like a corporate entity, our general budget will also have a balance-sheet and profit and loss account," said Bhadu. The RMC had last published its annual report in 2000. Since then, the practice had remained suspended, civic officials said.

The commissioner further said that the RMC would create Centre for Documentation, Information and Learning (CDIL), a departmental setup which would host archives of the civic body. The centre will come up on Nana Mava road in coming years.

"In the form of annual reports, civic officials will have reference data available to understand the requirements of different departments and design future projects to meet them. The data will also help the RMC formulate policies," the commissioner added. He said that the public relations department of the civic body would handle the responsibility of compiling the report every year.

The Indian Express           30.10.2013

Civic body slaps Rs 2 crore fine on road contractors

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has imposed a fine of Rs 2.29 crore on road contractors who have failed to carry out pothole repairs on time and have not maintained the standard quality of roads. The penalty has been slapped on pothole-repair contractors and contractors of roads that have recently resurfaced and are under the defect liability period.

Mayor Sunil Prabhu said, "We may even consider increasing the penalty amount and blacklisting some of the contractors. This year, we will also fine our own road engineers for negligence after we calculate the penalties on the new points system."

According to the civic roads department the highest penalties on defaulters include — Transconduct Pvt Ltd roughly fined Rs 25 lakh for shoddy repair works in Andheri (west) and Dahisar, Atasha Ashirwad fined over Rs 12 lakh for poor work in Andheri (East) and Kandivali and RPS Infraprojects collectively fined Rs 11.5 lakh in joint venture contracts.

This year, BMC had issued pre-monsoon contracts worth Rs 59 crore for filling potholes in the island city, eastern and western suburbs. Around 14 firms were appointed for the work. According to the terms of the contract, contractors had 48 hours to fill potholes assigned to them. A fine of Rs 1,000 for a day's delay was set as a condition in 2012.

In July, following increasing public criticism, the civic body conducted a quality test on potholes that were filled. It was revealed that 25 per cent of the cold mix used to repair potholes is substandard, indicating misappropriation of funds by contractors. The civic body imposed a fine worth Rs 2.05 crore on contractors and even cancelled the contract of Atasha Ashirwad.

While the amount of fines imposed on contractors has shown a rough 30 per cent increase from previous year's (where Rs 1.8 crore worth of penalties were levied on contractors), the number of potholes reported has increased by close to 60 per cent. According to the BMC's pothole tracking website www.voiceofcitizen.com, 38,500 pothole complaints were registered this year.

Last year, in four months, citizens reported 25,000 potholes on the website.

"The amounts of fine have been imposed taking into account the quality failure. Payments of the contractors will be accordingly deducted. There may be an increase in the number of potholes reported because our own engineers are using the website to upload the work they are undertaking. Also, people are now more aware of this system of reporting," a senior civic official of the roads department said.