BMC learns from mistakes, to maintain records of all contractors

The move comes in after BMC unearthed two major scams in the roads and the storm water drains (SWD) department in the last two years

Learning from its experiences with tainted contractors, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has started the process of making consolidated reports on more than 3000 contractors registered with the civic body.

85 civic officials are under the scanner in the Rs 80 crore desilting scam. (HT File Photo)

The report, which will include every detail associated with the contractors’ previous works, will be available for all departments before they award them projects again.

The move comes in after BMC unearthed two major scams in the roads and the storm water drains (SWD) department in the last two years.

In the Rs 352-crore roads scam, the Mumbai police has arrested 26 people, which include three senior civic officials and employees of the six tainted road contractors and two third-party auditors. 85 civic officials are under the scanner in the Rs 80 crore desilting scam.

A senior civic official, who did not wish to be named said, “Be it any memo, an inquiry or project details, everything will be available in the report for scrutiny. We will create an ID for each of the registered contractor that can be accessed by all departments. It will be a dynamic process as the information will be updated time and again.”

While BMC does maintain records, it is available manually and only with the departments involved with the respective works. As a civic body, the BMC awards civic works worth crores every year to various contractors for roads, drainage, health, solid waste among others in the city.

Meanwhile, the civic body is also digitising its records on civic employees under its larger digitisation project. The employee details will also be similar as it will include every project the civic employee has handled in his tenure in different departments.

In September 2015, the civic body’s standing committee had passed a proposal to digitise all its records for a cost of Rs 81 crores. This involved scanning of documents from more than 60 departments in the civic body.