BMC panel to probe balance sheet delay

A day after the state government asked the BMC to submit a report on its fiscal indiscipline, the ruling Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party appointed a sub-committee to find out why balance sheets (statements of income and expenditure) for the past three years had not been submitted.

A day after the state government asked the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to submit a report on its fiscal indiscipline, the ruling Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party appointed a sub-committee to find out why balance sheets (statements of income and expenditure) for the past three years had not been submitted.

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Following a debate in the Legislative Assembly, chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, on Tuesday, directed the BMC to submit financial statements within two months.

He said the lapse showed there was something wrong in the BMC.

The five-member panel will be headed by chairman of the standing committee, Rahul Shewale (Sena), and includes Ashish Shelar (BJP), Sunil Prabhu (Sena), Congressman and opposition leader Rajhans Singh, who made allegations in the Assembly, and Niyaz Vanu (NCP).

The standing committee discussed the issue on Wednesday. BJP leader in the BMC, Ashish Shelar, demanded that a sub-committee be formed to study and inquire into the delay and wrongdoings, if any.

Sena leader Sunil Prabhu seconded Shelar’s demand. “We must submit our inquiry report to the state government. Guilty officials must be punished,” he said.

Officials from the BMC’s accounts department said on condition of anonymity that they had discontinued the manual accounting system and switched over to the computerised version in 2005-06. “We have a record of entries, but it was not registered under proper heads because of the switchover. We will rectify this at the earliest,” a senior accounts officer told HT.