Mumbai: The BMC House meeting on Friday approved the promotion of 13 engineers, who were among the 63 officials indicted in the 2015 e-tender scam. The proposal was opposed by the BJP and passed by the Shiv Sena in the absence of corporators from the Congress party. An internal enquiry of BMC, almost four years after the e-tender scam came to light, had indicted 63 officials.
However, this indictment did not prevent names of the tainted 13 making it to the list of 55 engineers slated for promotion, and a proposal for the same was accordingly placed before the House. In the past, questions had been raised by Congress corporator and leader of Opposition, Ravi Raja.
But in the absence of the Congress party in the house on Friday, Shiv Sena passed the proposal, giving the engineers the benefit of the doubt. “If we block their promotion and they are not convicted, then they will have missed out and must wait for the next round of promotions,” said Sena corporator and chairman of the standing committee, Yashwant Jadhav.
However, BJP corporator Manoj Kotak vociferously opposed the proposal. “What precedent are we setting by approving the proposal? Why are we promoting those engineers who have already been named in the internal enquiry of the BMC?” questioned Kotak.
A senior civic official confirmed to The Free Press Journal that an employee cannot be deprived of promotion. “If the punishment is awarded after promotion, the employee must serve it in their promoted position,” said the civic official. The additional municipal commissioner of BMC, Praveen Darade, said the corporation had taken all aspects of the issue into consideration before deciding on the promotions. The proposal was passed in the BMC by the Sena through voting.
