Submit papers of park upkeep funds expenditure, Gurgaon RWAs told

GURUGRAM: MCG has asked over 50 resident welfare associations (RWAs) to produce utilisation certificates, explaining use of maintenance funds for parks in their societies. The move comes after a city-based RTI activist filed a complaint with the MCG commissioner, alleging misuse of the funds by RWAs.
According to complainant SK Sharma, the money spent on maintenance of parks has doubled between 2016-17 and 2017-18 without a proportionate increase in number of RWAs receiving the funds.

“The money spent on maintenance of parks has increased from nearly Rs 73 lakh in 2016-17 to Rs 2.67 crore in 2017-18 whereas the number of RWAs receiving the funds has only increased from 44 to 51,” said Sharma.

MCG officials said that they had received the complaint and asked all RWAs concerned for utilisation certificates. MCG commissioner Yashpal Yadav said, “We have asked RWAs to submit bills, detailing where they have spent the money. We will also come up with a standard operating procedure for these kind of expenses in the future and ensure that the money is not directly handed over to these associations.”

There are 532 parks under the corporation, as of now. Maintenance of parks in residential areas was handed over to RWAs in 2016 for better outputs. The arrangement has received criticism from councillors who have alleged that RWAs were not capable of maintaining parks and MCG must take over the responsibility.

Sharma also said that these funds were allotted over and above the one-time charges paid to RWAs for one-time expenses on parks for works such as construction of boundary walls. The one-time charges are decided depending on the total area of parks. An amount of Rs 1 lakh is given for all parks up to half an acre whereas Rs 2 lakh and Rs 3 lakh are allocated for parks with areas of 2 acre and 3 acre, respectively. A senior MCG official said the replies from the associations were expected in the next week, following which the corporation would have a fair idea about where the funds were being utilised.