Outsourcing bug bites AMC

The move, which is amenable to judicial scrutiny, stems from the huge backlog of audit objections that have remained unsettled for decades and for which the MCA had requested augmenting its staff strength.

Acting on an old request for adding more staff in the MCA office, Municipal Commissioner I P Gautam has now proposed outsourcing of the audit of bills in excess of Rs 1 crore in the AMC to renowned CA firm Manubhai and Brothers. The AMC general board will approve the proposal in due course even as it will leave MCA Jagdish Shah squirming and smarting under the impact of the debatable decision.

“We cannot employ staff numbering around 50 to do the audit work. Instead, part of the work will be outsourced to an outside agency which will work under and in consultation with the MCA for bills of over Rs 1 crore,” said Gautam.

He added: “There is no provision in this regard in the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation Act, but being an internal process we can go ahead with this even without consulting the state government.”

The standing committee, by its resolution number 906 of October 3, 1997 had spiked 34,952 audit objections, which had come up till then since 1990-91. Another lot of 35,801 objections piled from October 1997 to March 2006, which was topped by yet another lot of 9,738 objections in 2006-08.

The committee took up the matter in 2007 and decided to maintain a status quo on about 20,650 objections of 1990-2000 as no record was available. It also decided to dispose another 15,000 objections of 2000-06. By running a special drive and working on holidays, the Finance Department cleared 18,855 objections in two years. As of now, as many as 20,650 objections for 1990-2000 and 6,034 objections as on April 1, 2008 are pending resolution.

“All this shows that there is a scope for improvement in the provisions of the BPMC Act, 1949 regarding audit work arrangement… audit of works beyond Rs 1 crore will be done by an independent agency,” said an AMC release.

The control on audit will be of the elected wing only to the exclusion of the municipal commissioner.