Crores go down the drain in the upkeep of KMC men By Tarun Goswami (http://thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=23&theme=&usrsess=1&id=274207)
KOLKATA, 11 NOV: You may feel harassed every time you fetch up at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), but life inside is not so bad for senior employees.
For, even as hundreds of tax payers have written to the state Urban Development and Municipal Affairs minister Mr Asok Bhattacharya alleging rampant corruption in the revenue and building departments of KMC and seeking his intervention, the civic authorities are spending Rs 3.70 crore per annum on transport and cell phones alone for senior officials who are charged with solving the problems of 1.25 lakh citizens in 141 wards.
Whilst the argument of the civic body is that, broken down, the figures are very reasonable as they apply to the benefits given to 158 senior officials, the counter-argument by critics is that there would be no grouse if these officials were performers, or even if their productivity was rigorously monitored in an objective way. The officials include 12 KMC director generals, two municipal engineering chiefs, 66 executive engineers (civil), 15 executive engineers (mechanical) and 14 executive engineers (electrical), in addition to 26 deputy chief engineers and 23 managers.
Altogether, the 158 officials each avail of a car and a further 42 cars (which are used in borough offices) are kept as stand-by taking the total number of hired vehicles to 200. For each car, the KMC spends Rs 500 daily which includes Rs 210 a day as hiring charges along with six litres of fuel plus engine oil. Thus the civic authorities are spend Rs one lakh a day on vehicles for the chosen officials, that is Rs 30 lakh in a month, taking the annual expenditure to Rs 3.60 crore. In addition, these officials are given Rs 500 a month for their mobile phones, for which the KMC picks up a tab of Rs 79,000 each month or Rs 9.48 lakh per annum.
KMC insiders says it's an open secret that cars allotted for official use are mostly put to personal use, including dropping and collecting children from school, going shopping and running other household chores.
A senior official said if there was an intent to economise, two or three officials could easily be "car pooled" to cut down expenditure. Justifying the expenditure, however, a director general said as the work load had increased manifold, it had become "absolutely necessary" to provide cars to senior officials who have to visit sites quite often to supervise work. "We have to go to Writers' Buildings and other state government offices in
He added: "We have had these facilities for many years and any attempt to curb expenditure by doing away with them under the garb of 'rationalisation' as is being suggested in some quarters in the KMC would have a very negative impact on administrative work."
If that's not a threat, one wonders what is.
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