TOI : How corporators spend, drain away your money : Jan 15, 2007

Shalini Nair | TNN

Mumbai: The largest chunk of corporators’ funds-roughly Rs 99.3 crore-went
into drainage projects over the past five years. Though the spending may be
indicative of the actual demands of various wards, allegations of funds
being misused also indicate that while a lot of money has gone into drains,
large amounts have also gone down the drain. Civic sources have said that
drainage spending is an area that allows for the maximum fudging of figures
as far as funds are concerned.

Sameer Desai, Congress corporator from Goregaon, said that contractors
play a decisive role in getting corporator funds for various works.
“Contractors are most willing to carry out repairs on drains. There is
always a great disparity between the actual amount spent and the money
allotted, as it is not possible to document the exact amount of work carried
out when repairing drains,” said Desai.

While the current crop of corporators, whose five-year terms come to an
end next month, have spent the most money-35%-on drains, the second-biggest
spending has been in a rather nondescript category called community
development. The least funds have gone into developing open spaces. The
percentage-wise findings are from data collected under the Right to
Information Act by the NGO Praja Foundation, which did a city-wide survey of
the spendings of corporators from various political parties.

Each of the BMC’s 227 corporators get a discretionary fund of Rs 25 lakh
a year for work in their constituencies during each of their five years in
the municipal House. This amounts to Rs 1.25 crore over five years per corporator and Rs 283.75 crore collectively for the whole House.

While it can be surmised that roughly Rs 99.3 crore was spent on drains,
22% (or roughly Rs 62.4 crore) was spent on community development and only
1% (roughly Rs 2.8 crore) on open spaces.

Community development is a category that includes a wide variety of
work, like building cement passages, compound walls, fencing and, most
importantly, libraries, gyms, welfare centres, balwadis and so on.

“This is a category in which a corporator willingly spends funds. He
gets funds sanctioned for, say, building a welfare centre or a gymnasium,
and before long it gets converted into something like his personal office,”
admitted a South Mumbai corporator who did not wish to be named.

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