For the last few years, the PMC has been facing a deficit of almost 40 per cent in the implementation of civic budgets and the civic administration has been under pressure to implement the budget properly.

The ruling BJP in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has turned down a proposal by the civic administration to present a supplementary budget after the mid-term review of the civic budget. The move was aimed at putting an end to the practice of diversion of funds by corporators to fund projects of their choice.

“There is no need for such an initiative. The civic administration also seeks diversion of funds as and when required. So, it is not wrong for corporators to seek diversion of funds as per requirement,” said Hemant Rasane, chairperson of the PMC Standing Committee.

His comments come a day after he tabled the civic budget of Rs 7,390 crore — Rs 1,161 crore higher than the draft budget prepared by the civic administration — for 2020-21 in the General Body meeting of PMC.

While submitting the draft budget to the PMC Standing Committee on January 27, Municipal Commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad had declared his intention of presenting a supplementary budget. “There is no rule against tabling a supplementary budget in the civic body. Thus, the administration will review the civic budget after six months and table a supplementary budget,” said Gaikwad. The supplementary budget was meant to avoid further hassles for the administration, which has to field frequent proposals on diversion of funds throughout the year and also help the civic body manage its financial affairs more efficiently.

But the municipal commissioner’s decision had not gone down well with elected representatives of the PMC, who reportedly expressed their displeasure over it in party meetings.

This is not the first time PMC corporators have thwarted efforts to keep a check on diversion of civic funds. Earlier, when the PMC administration had decided to prepare a list of works that were not high priority for the civic body, but were still being taken up after diversion of funds, the corporators had opposed the administration’s efforts.

Former municipal commissioner Saurabh Rao had even planned a social audit of all civic works that cost over Rs 10 lakh. Rao had said that there was a need to inculcate financial discipline in the civic body to manage its financial affairs.

For the last few years, the PMC has been facing a deficit of almost 40 per cent in the implementation of civic budgets and the civic administration has been under pressure to implement the budget properly. The civic body has also faced flak for inflating its budget despite not being able to implement it completely.