Mumbai: Attempts to bring transparency, accountability, and efficiency in the functioning of departments of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) seem to have come to a dead end, as the committee formed to provide suggestions was disbanded in July without even informing its citizen representatives.
Former Chief Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi, Bhaskar Prabhu, and Dr. Sharad Wagle were the citizen representatives of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) formed by then BMC Commissioner Sitaram Kunte in April 2013.
“I took up the work and set down as an objective that Section 4 (suo moto disclosures of the BMC) would set an example, and the indicator should be a dramatic reduction in the RTI applications received by it. In four years, we had 41 meetings. Besides, we conducted about 12 workshops for over 500 BMC officials to explain the RTI Act,” Mr. Gandhi said. He also said that none of the citizen representatives asked for remuneration.
Suggestions of the TAC were to make information about building plans, tenders, specifications, and work orders public.
“Following the meeting on May 22 this year, the Municipal Commissioner offered complete support. On May 27, I sent him an email with main points. Since there was no response, I sent him a reminder on July 10. Following this, there were verbal reminders sent to call for a meeting of TAC, but nothing happened,” Mr. Gandhi said.
In an RTI reply to activist Girish Mittal in November 2017, the civic body had said that since the objective of TAC has been fulfilled and another three-member committee has been formed to provide suggestions under former Municipal Commissioner Sharad Kale, TAC need not function and can be disbanded.
“Apart from the fact that the Municipal Commissioner did not even have the courtesy to inform the citizen members, it appears that our persistence irked the BMC and may have prompted this rude action. I wish they implemented the transparency measures we had proposed,” Mr. Gandhi said.
A senior bureaucrat from the BMC, who did not wish to be named, said that TAC was shelved since its objective was met. “We will check if the citizen representatives were not conveyed the message.”
