Two years on,third party audit for BMC budget still on paper

The concept of an outcome based budget on the basis of a third party audit that was first talked about in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in 2008 is yet to see light of the day.

The concept of an outcome based budget on the basis of a third party audit that was first talked about in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in 2008 is yet to see light of the day. While the civic body had announced in the budget of 2010-11 that the next budget will be based on outcome-based performance indicators for all the 19 departments within the BMC prepared by consultants,the method has not been used while preparing the budget estimates of 2011-12.

Though the civic body carries out department-wise performance assessment,the concept of the third party audit is yet to take off. The reason given by officials is that the official from Delhi-based Society for Development Studies,that was given the task of preparing these performance indicators,who was in touch with the BMCs Finance Department had moved out of India. A senior official from the department said,After the official from SDS left,the correspondence between them and us stopped and the project could not progress further. They had done some preliminary research of our departments and had given us a package of performance indicators. But the process could not be completed.

When contacted,heads of various departments of the BMC admitted that though the current budget is based on outcome,there is no involvement of any third party in the assessment. An outcome based budget takes into account the actual performance of a department during the financial year as against the money spent by it.

The first outcome based budget of the BMC was brought in during 2008-09 when a Monitoring and Evaluation cell in all departments along with an Outcome Advisory Board were appointed to oversee the planning,budgeting and expenditure monitoring of the different departments. For example,indicators and key targets for Storm Water Drainage department would be achieving zero flooding during the monsoon,zero vector-borne diseases and international standards in cleaning. For the roads department,the main task is to provide standard road infrastructure,road transportation speed,reduced accident rates,etc.

Congress corporator Rajendra Chaubey said that amongst the many unfulfilled promises from the budget of 2010-11,non-implementation of the third party outcome audit is the most significant one. In a scenario where we do not have enough funds for capital expenditure,a fair and unbiased audit of the departments is absolutely essential, he said.

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram

Tags:
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation