Currently what are the rules for financial powers

MUMBAI, February 5: With Narayan Rane occupying the chair of the chief minister in the state, financial powers to the mayor and his counc...

MUMBAI, February 5: With Narayan Rane occupying the chair of the chief minister in the state, financial powers to the mayor and his council members may not be a distant dream. Mayor Nandu Satam, who had written to the CM8217;s office asking to be vested with financial powers of Rs 50 lakh for himself and Rs 25 lakh each for his 10 council members, may soon get independent powers shortly.

Satam had written to Manohar Joshi when he was the CM but Joshi did not act on it. Sources close to the mayor pointed out that the new chief minister is likely to pass the proposal because of his cordial relations with the mayor. Rane and Satam came into politics almost at the same time and also both of them belong to the same batch in school. Another factor which is the most important : both of them belong to the Konkan region.

However, there is every possibility that the amount demanded by the Mayor will be reduced, felt corporators close to the mayor. 8220;We will be glad even if the mayor is granted powers to the tune of Rs 25 lakh and the council members Rs 15 lakh each. Even with this, the council members will be above the municipal commissioner who has powers to pass proposal upto Rs 10 lakh,8221; said a Shiv Sena corporator.

A committee chairperson rued that for every proposal, they had to beg before the committee consisting of 16 members, from all the political parties. Sources in the BMC pointed out that immediately after Satam took over as the first mayor of the MiC, he realised that he was not able to pass a single proposal without the approval of his council members. It had to be brought before the MiC as a proposal and on approval of majority of the members, it could be passed.

On the other hand, the municipal commissioner, whose powers were drastically curtailed in the new system, found that the limit of his financial power was increased from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.

The new system was meant to give more powers to the elected representatives and make the functioning of the corporation less bureaucratic but council members realised later that they could not spend a single paisa without the approval of their committee members.

The mayor was very upset with this and expressed his unhappiness on a number of ocassions. Last week, when he was called at a seminar by the Local self government, Satam made this point again. The pinch of not having any individual powers was felt particularly during the monsoon regarding repair of pot-holes on the roads.

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Roads and traffic committee chairperson Suhasini Parab and the Mayor fought over the issue as to who had the powers to pass the road repair proposals to the tune of crores of rupees. While the Mayor demanded that the proposal should be brought into the MiC meeting, Parab insisted that her committee should scrutiny them. The issued raged for sometime and in the meantime, the municipal commissioner executing his powers passed proposals of the more urgent works in the city.

While the council members are looking forward for more powers for the Mayor, they feel that a review of the functioning of the MiC needs to be done. 8220;The Mayor does not set any target for the various committees not are any plans drafted for the year ahead unlike the state government,8221; said a council member on conditions of anonymity. Even Joshi in the last 10 months had not bothered to hold a single meeting with the council members to ensure that the system is functioning smoothly and in the right direction.

A co-ordination committee meeting the BMC and the state government also had to be cancelled as the chief minister could not spare time for the meeting. The BMC had made all preparations for the meeting and a tentative date was also fixed but had to be called off later.