Mumbai civic body panel wants audit of ₹1,250 cr spent on Covid relief

More than 100 proposals worth ₹1,250 crores were tabled in Wednesday’s meeting before the committee, about the various expenses related to Covid, like medicines, PPE kits, Covid Care Centres and so on

Suspecting corruption into the emergency expenditures related to Covid-19, the standing committee of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has directed the administration to conduct a financial audit into the ₹1,250 crore spent for Covid relief work by the civic body.

The standing committee of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation refused to sanction the proposals and demanded that an audit report of all the expenditures to be submitted to the committee. (HT PHOTO)

More than 100 proposals worth ₹1,250 crores were tabled in Wednesday’s meeting before the committee, about the various expenses related to Covid, like medicines, PPE kits, Covid Care Centres and so on.

The committee refused to sanction the proposals and demanded that an audit report of all the expenditures to be submitted to the committee. Prabhakar Shinde, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) group leader and senior corporator in the BMC, said, “The administration has not given clear information on the expenditure done for Covid related works. A lot of Covid centres have only shown the total charges, but have not mentioned the number of patients that were treated there. There could be a mismanagement of ₹200 crores in all of the proposals.”

Rais Shaikh, Samajwadi Party leader, said, “There has been gross negligence and mismanagement in awarding tenders for constructing Covid Care Centres. I have multiple examples where the tendering process was faulty.”

Following the demands, the standing committee chairman, Yashwant Jadhav, directed the municipal auditor for a complete audit of the expenses.

The proposals of Covid expenses tabled during Wednesday’s meeting were for post-facto approval, which means the contracts for the civic works have been awarded and BMC has already committed them for payment. This leaves little scope for the standing committee’s effective rejection of the proposals. This is possible because the standing committee gave spending powers to the municipal commissioner in March, in light of the lockdown, since the committee did not meet during that time.