The Indian Express 02.08.2012
Corporators to get Rs 40 lakh extra for ward development
After scrapping the Rs 1-crore development fund for corporators a year ago, the BMC standing committee on Wednesday brought it back in a diluted form.
According to the proposal, member corporators of all 24 ward committees will be given an additional Rs 40 lakh this year, irrespective of the size of the committee. The committees already receive an annual fund of Rs 1 crore, which is equally divided among its corporators. This is over and above the councillor fund that was last year hiked to Rs 60 lakh from Rs 35 lakh. This proposal, however, needs to be cleared by the BMC Commissioner and subsequently by the state government.
“These funds will be used for ward-level works and carrying out maintenance work and repairs in the city. Earlier, a Central agency handled some of these repairs and constructions but now these will be taken up by every corporator,” said standing committee chairman Rahul Shewale.
As the funds will be sourced from the ward committee, corporators will have to seek the approval of the fellow committee members before undertaking any project. While the municipal councillor fund (Rs 60 lakh) limits corporators from taking up projects that entail an expenditure of over Rs 5 lakh, the limit of the ward committee fund is double at Rs 10 lakh. “Expenses under the ward committee mainly pertain to civil work repair and maintenance. With the monsoon, no work can be carried out now. Post-monsoon, only six months remain. This is bad planning, the corporation should have increased the corpus much earlier so we could have been better prepared for the rains,” said BJP corporator Manoj Kotak.
The standing committee has also approved the amendments to the BMC budget for 2012-13, which is about Rs 26,000 crore and includes Samsung Android cellphones and Rs 500 telephone allowance for each corporator.
Interspersed with expenses for the creation of a research and development wing for the Roads Department, dryer compactors for garbage collection, and postage stamps and stationery, the list amounts to an addition of Rs 5 crore to the budget. “Actual costs may go up to Rs 10 crore,” added Shewale.
