At a time when the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) faces an acute fund crunch, due to a significant squeeze in finances due to the pandemic, municipal corporators have bagged cores at their disposal to woo the electorate in the run up to civic elections scheduled to be held in August, this year.
Allocations amounting to Rs. 73 crores for 95 elected representatives have been earmarked towards discretionary development funds in the budget for the current fiscal. This is apart from the annual ward development funds allocated to each corporator.
However, the discretionary development funds could be annulled as Shiv Sena legislator- Geeta Jain who is also a corporator in the MBMC has sought the intervention of the state’s urban development department (UDD) to immediately scrap the unjustified resolution under the provisions of the Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act as the allotments could lead to misuse and unplanned expenditure but the decision was against the larger public interest or could hurt the financial interest of the municipality.
Leading the pack of office-bearers is Mayor with Rs. 4.5 crore and deputy mayor with Rs. 4 crore, followed by standing committee chairman (Rs. 3.5 crore), leader of the house ( Rs. 1.5 crore), leader of the opposition ( Rs. 1 crore) and remaining corporators with a total of Rs.25 crores at their discretion. Activists have pointed out that such discretionary spending amidst a financial crisis would set a bad precedent. Notably, the civic administration has already floated tenders for some of the works to be undertaken based on money from the discretionary development funds, sources said.
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The BJP single-handedly rules the MBMC on the virtue of its absolute majority in the house. Rules mandate the allotment of not more than two percent of the civic body’s total revenue towards such funding to municipal corporators.
