The Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday called out the BMC for its monumental incompetence and ineptitude as the BMC - India's richest municipal corporation hurriedly passed the budget for 2020-2021 without adequate discussion. This has been heavily criticized by the opposition municipal councilors.
It may be recalled that while the BMC may be the richest municipal corporation in India and despite sky-high budgetary outlays, almost 50% of the budget is unutilized year after year. In addition to this, thousands of crores remain locked in fixed deposits, which rather being used for the betterment of civic amenities for Mumbaikars are actually used to compensate for the inefficiencies and misgovernance of the BMC, AAP alleges.
AAP even alleged that BMC had poor standards of public service delivery and corruption at every public interface of the BMC.
"The AAP Govt in Delhi has demonstrated that honest politics can deliver tangible good governance, be it healthcare, education, electricity, water, or infrastructure."
AAP further says the BMC has been ruled by the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance for 25 years till 2017, and by the Shiv Sena for the last 3 years with the Congress in opposition to the BMC and alliance in the state govt. "That's 28 years of monumental misgovernance that Mumbaikars are sick and tired of."
"The only role that elected municipal councilors seem to play is allocating budgets and dispensing contracts to favoured contractors, instead of actually working for the city and solving citizens' grievances," AAP says.
The party demands that like in Delhi, Mumbai should have an outcome budget every year which should precede any budgetary outlay and an action plan from the Mayor and the Standing Committee chairman to ensure that the underutilization of the budget recurs.
"It is time that Mumbaikars held their civic administration both councilors, as well as the bureaucrats accountable and AAP, will lead a citizen awareness movement for the same," said AAP Leader, Preeti Sharma Menon.
