BMC gears up to materialise its ‘Vision 2030’ for Mumbai; workshop at E&Y irks corporators

To come up with an execution plan for its ‘Vision 2030’ for the city, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Friday held a workshop with top civic officials

To come up with an execution plan for its ‘Vision 2030’ for the city, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Friday held a workshop with top civic officials and elected civic representatives, along with private consultancy firm Ernst & Young (E&Y) and several contractors.

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The four-hour meeting was the second between BMC and E&Y to discuss improvement of roads, health and infrastructure, solid waste management and digitisation. It was the

first one that involved elected public representatives,

contractors and technology experts. However, the location of the workshop at E&Y’s space and the list of invitees met with criticism from corporators, many of whom boycotted the meeting, or walked out of it midway. Only 14-15 of the 27 corporators on the standing committee who were invited to the workshop attended it. All Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) corporators, some Congress corporators, and Samajwadi Party boycotted the meeting.

Among the topics discussed were what contributions can the budgetary provisions 2020-21 make towards achieving BMC’s ‘Vision 2030’ goal for Mumbai, how to create a citizen-centric approach, central data management, centralised coordination for all work, and road contract management.

Municipal commissioner Praveen Pardeshi told Hindustan Times, “We are critically looking at important problems in these sectors, and how to solve them by involving all stakeholders, government officers and consultants. We are using E&Y’s space for our workshop, and we use a lot of base material they have. This was a design thinking workshop, and E&Y work as facilitators of the workshop. A team of BMC officials do the scanning of how these services are best provided in the world, and if we

can replicate them. Our aim

is to determine how we can make the corporation look like in 2030.” Praveen Pardeshi’s vision 2030 for Mumbai was pitched and received a nod from chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on his first official visit to BMC last week.

A senior representative from E&Y confirmed about the meeting with BMC, but also said, “I am not authorised to speak to the press.”

Leader of the opposition in BMC, Ravi Raja said, “I am an elected representative holding a statutory position. It is not okay for anyone holding a statutory position to visit a corporate firm’s office and conduct discussions on civic matters, or an official government document such as the budget.”

Leader of the Samajwadi Party in BMC, and MLA Rais Shaikh said, “I am annoyed that elected representatives from the standing committee are visiting a contractor’s office for discussions. I did not attend the meeting.”

The official invite to the meeting to the 27 corporators

of the standing committee from BMC administration read: “A workshop regarding Budget provisions for the year 2020-21 for roads and health department is arranged on Friday, the 13th December 2019, between 3.30 pm to 5.30 pm at E&Y. .. By official order of the Municipal Commissioner.”