Indian Express 6.11.2009
‘Improve accounting, bring info in public domain to reform MC’
An improvement in the accounting system, making detailed plans for the city’s development and availability of information in the public domain — these are some of the recommendations made by councillor Pallav Mukherjee for improving the functioning of the Municipal Corporation.
Mukherjee is heading the committee that is looking into the working of the civic body and suggesting measures for its improvement.
The committee had been constituted after orders were issued by UT Administrator Gen S F Rodrigues (Retd) following a spat between the Mayor and the Municipal Commissioner. The committee’s report is in its final stages of completion. Mukherjee said there should be a double entry system with computerised records that would enable to maintain a list of assets built over the years by the civic body.
The system of each department maintaining records should be done away with and a qualified person should be appointed to keep a tab on all records
Another suggestion is that the departments should make plans for the city’s development in accordance with the Chandigarh Development Plan (CDP) that has been adopted by the UT Administration.
This would prevent ad hoc decisions and reduce wasteful expenditure of public funds on unnecessary projects like buying Italian road sweeping machines, when the same were available in India at cheaper rates.
Mukherjee further suggested that all information should be uploaded on the MC website and updated regularly.
Information like utilisation of resources, project management, citizen resource management, purchase systems, stocks and other functions of the corporation should be made available on the website. For this purpose, instead of re-employing retired personnel, there is a need to hire tech-savvy people.
It was stressed that project management systems and protocols be put in place. Mukherjee added that at present there is no system to examine the cost of machines or the estimates of the works approved.
At times, work is not executed on time and then the revised estimate, which is many times higher, is passed. He pointed out that there have been little or almost no inputs for improving systems to make them efficient, transparent and accountable. Little has been done to make expenditure and purchase systems or even project management systems fool-proof. There is a lack of planning for projects and other expenses, he said.
