The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has a budget greater than that for some of the states in the country, but it is yet to present the monthly accounts for the years 2007 to 2012. This is a violation its own municipal act, and has raised a questions about its financial accountability. While the corporators are livid over the lapse, the civic officials have blamed technical glitches in the municipal system for the failure.
According to section 135 of the BMC Act of 1888, the accounts department is supposed to submit monthly reports to the standing committee for scrutiny. However, MNS group leader and corporator Sandeep Deshpande has alleged that those reports were not submitted to the committee between the years 2007 and 2012.
“The opening balance for the new financial year did not tally with the closing balance for last year. Besides, Rs 433 crore of the BMC is still lying in its interim accounts and not accounted for in the expenditure, he added.
Civic officials said the lapse has been due to technical glitches in the SAP ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Solutions system, which the BMC adopted in 2007 to streamline auditing. The ABM Knowledgeware Ltd, which has been operating the system, has not been able to develop monthly accounts in the SAP system. Hence, it was decided to lay off the accounts of five years from 2007 to 2012 and accordingly the BMC has submitted accounts from the year 2012.
Additional municipal commissioner SVR Srinivas said, “Though the monthly audit for the year 2007 to 2012 is unavailable, we have submitted yearly audits to the committee.”
However, corporators said the BMC had no right to request a lay-off of the records.
