Surendra.gangan@htlive.com
Mumbai: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the state legislature has raised serious doubts over the system of audit of the cessed and dilapidated buildings in Mumbai. Its report, tabled in both the houses of the legislature on Monday, states that the count of cessed buildings appears to be fake. The statutory committee has also said the procedure to announce the buildings that are ‘in dangerous condition’ is faulty and the fact that most of the collapsed buildings are not in the list, exposes this flaw.
The committee has said that the buildings have been declared dangerous out of 19,000 cessed buildings by external surveys instead of conducting structural audit.
The PAC report has directed the state government to conduct scientific audit of the buildings to decide their category on the basis of their existing condition and shelf life. The PAC has also directed the government to display the report of these audit reports on their website so that the residents are informed about it.
The 29th report of the PAC on the action taken by the government on the strictures passed by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its 2011-12 report, was prepared by the committee after conducting hearings of the officials from the departments concerned.
“It is strange that the repair work of the most dangerous buildings is not given priority as the government lacks the scientific system of evaluating their physical conditions and there is no transparency about their maintenance. The government should think of cluster development of the cessed buildings and also should constitute a committee for the effective implementation of their redevelopment,” the report has stated. “The government also should prepare a priority list of the buildings that need to be urgently repaired. It has been proven time and again that the list prepared by the authorities is flawed as the buildings collapsed in the city in last few years were never found on the priority list.”
{{/usCountry}}“It is strange that the repair work of the most dangerous buildings is not given priority as the government lacks the scientific system of evaluating their physical conditions and there is no transparency about their maintenance. The government should think of cluster development of the cessed buildings and also should constitute a committee for the effective implementation of their redevelopment,” the report has stated. “The government also should prepare a priority list of the buildings that need to be urgently repaired. It has been proven time and again that the list prepared by the authorities is flawed as the buildings collapsed in the city in last few years were never found on the priority list.”
{{/usCountry}}The committee has also rapped the medical education department for the loss of Rs1.85 crore due to negligence towards the machine it purchased for the processing of biomedical waste in July 2009 at Solapur. In two years of its procurement only 204 kgs of biomedical waste was processed. The machine was defunct since August 2011 after some of the parts were stolen, forcing the administration to outsource a new machine on a monthly rent of Rs48,500. The committee has said the loss was due to sheer negligence of the department.
The committee also slammed the Mumbai University for it failure to implement the SAP system for the upgradation of the computerisation for better results. The report says that it led to the loss of face of the varsity.
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