MUMBAI: Under pressure from corporators who want to spend funds on development work in their constituencies ahead of the BMC elections, the civic body on Monday released the Rs 350 crore of corporators’ funds that it had frozen last week.
BMC chief Iqbal Chahal confirmed to TOI that the funds have been released. But he has directed additional municipal commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal to examine the misuse of funds in Shiv Sena corporator and standing committee chairman Yashwant Jadhav’s constituency (no. 209) in Byculla.
The BMC had put on hold Rs 350 crore of corporators’ funds that were part of a larger corpus given through the standing committee after a controversy broke out over its use to buy items like food trucks, jute bags, solar street lights, laptops and gym equipment. The amount is the unused part of Rs 750 crore given to corporators to spend on development work in their constituencies. “The funds have been released after a review,” said said P Velrasu, additional municipal commissioner. But, a civic official said Chahal had negotiated with civic group leaders on cutting discretionary funds in next year’s budget. “Jadhav was asking for Rs 1,000 crore in the standing panel amendment. But as Rs 350 crore was not used this year, it was decided that only Rs 750 crore will be allocated in next year’s budget. So, a sort of adjustment has been made,” said the official.
SP corporator Rais Shaikh demanded that the entire mechanism of area development funds be re-examined. “Not more than 2% of the total budget must be given for such unplanned funds...All corporators’ funds must only be used for creating civic amenities and as part of planned expenditure. Their use must be monitored.”