12 lakh pages lost in fire: corporator

Mumbai: Samajwadi Party (SP) corporator Rais Sheikh has alleged that the BMC lost 12 lakh pages of confidential documents in a fire on December 11 last year. The fire had broken out at the office of the firm contracted to digitise them.

has alleged that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation lost many confidential files due to a fire in a firm that was to digitise and archive BMC documents. In a point of order raised at the BMC's standing committee on Saturday, leader of the SP in BMC Rais Shaikh accused the BMC of keeping the corporation in the dark about the number of documents it lost in the fire on December 11.

He said as per information with him, the documents included 1,200 volumes, each of 1,000 pages, dating from 1817, in the fire at the Stock Holding Corporation of India (SHCI). “Most files pertained to the Building Proposal department and held critical information like negative remarks against officials. While organisations like the Mhada, which also lost files in the fire, admitted to losing about 1,800 files, the BMC continues to be tight-lipped on what it lost.”

He received support from the BJP, which demanded the BMC not allow confidential files to be taken out of the premises. BJP corporator Manoj Kotak referred to the fire at Mantralaya several years ago, which destroyed many documents. He also said civic documents should be made available online.