50% cut-down in salary if projects are delayed says BMC Officials.

By Abhay Shah, Realty Quarter

To ensure that civic works are carried out on time, the chief Praveen Pardeshi of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) recently issued circular asking officers to get the projects carried out on time or to lose 50% of their pay. In addition to the officials, the circular also warned civic contractors that they would also lose 20% of the project costs if the deadline is not met.

The Senior Officer of Civic Affairs announced on Thursday that “Pardeshi published last week the circular calling for municipal authorities involved with the supervision of projects to complete their work within a time limit or to lose their salary by 50%.”

“The contractors were also warned that they would lose 20% of project costs if the time limit wasn’t met. The circular stated that the factors quoted in the circular are not convincing and very frivolous by the officers and contractors not to fulfil the project deadlines,” he said.

He said that the circular issued by the civic chief was to motivate the officials, in particular, the engineers, from carrying out projects within the timescales. Activists have welcomed the move and said it would benefit all and help in implying responsibility.

RTI activist Anil Galgali, who revealed several cases of suspected corruption in the cash-rich BMC, informed that “The municipal body spends more than Rs 10,000 crore each year on public works, but it has hardly reached any project deadline.”

“On the contrary, the projects are intentionally delayed to raise their costs, owing to the unholy nexus between engineers and contractors. Hopefully, this salary-cutting effort would function and crack the nexus,” he added.