The cash-rich Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) controlled by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and former Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar is in trouble after auditors have pointed to irregularities exceeding hundreds of crores of rupees.
A report on a three-year audit of the PCMC concluded that there were no documents and files to account for Rs. 394 crore expenses. The audit report pertains to the financial years 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08.
Mr. Pawar, deeply mired in allegations of corruption in the multi-crore irrigation scam, calls the shots in the operations of the PCMC Township, in itself considered an NCP bastion in Pune district.
The auditors have raised objections to unaccounted expenses in the form of a Bill of Rs. 44 crore, allegedly granted for various public works.
Pune-based activist and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Maruti Bhapkar, who filed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition in the Bombay High Court in 1999, alleged that the cumulative “irregularities” within the PCMC in the last decade exceeded Rs. 900 crore.
No audit for 18 yearsSpeaking to The Hindu , Mr. Bhapkar alleged that the PCMC (constituted in 1970) had not conducted any audit during an 18-year period before 2000.
In 2001, the Bombay High Court passing strictures, suggested dissolution of the PCMC after auditors raised strong objections about unaccounted expenditure of Rs. 500 crore.
“There is nothing surprising in the ‘missing documents’ unravelled in this audit report. While corporators of all political parties are involved in this scam, there is no doubt of the NCP’s primacy as it has held power for the maximum time in recent years,” Mr. Bhapkar said, demanding strict action against the guilty officials and corporators.
However, the NCP, which holds a majority in the PCMC, has refuted any role in the scam, for which it blamed the “corrupt” civic administration. “Our party is in no way involved in this. In fact, it is we who have been clamouring for regular audits,” said Yogesh Behl, NCP leader from Pune.
Meanwhile, Padmashree Taldekar, the chief auditor, said PCMC authorities were given a month to produce the missing documents.
