BMC has no funds to give property returns

DNA: Mumbai: Tuesday, 02 September 2014.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) may be the richest civic body in the country, but certain procedural lapses on its part are there for all to see. Despite having inexhaustible funds, an applicant was surprised to see the corporation's response which stated that it did not have enough money to give his property tax returns. RTI applicant

SK Nangia's refund due for the 2014-15 fiscal was over Rs5,500.

Q What was the issue?

A resident of Kandivli, Nangia did not get his property refund on time for the excess property tax charged for three years. The BMC makes a provision to refund excess tax collected. The provision for refund is to be made each corresponding year after the excess amount is charged and the new tax demand made.

Q What did the BMC say?

Nangia's application for the refund was first rejected. The corporation did not offer any reason for it. He filed an RTI application and the matter went up to the second appeal stage where the information commission asked the corporation to provide details. Nangia eventually got the refund money but filed RTIs again to know the details of the lapses on part of the corporation. "I filed an RTI asking reasons for the rejection. It was surprising that the public information officer (PIO) actually wrote to me stating that due to non-availability of funds, refund cases were not processed further. Hence, my case was not processed too," said Nangia.

Q What did the corporation do eventually?

After getting to know that the corporation did not have any money, Nangia sought to know where did the funds spring from? The corporation informed him that it gave him the refund from its "Emergency Fund". "Actually, this is financial mismanagement. They should be making provisions instead of making these technical adjustments," said Nangia.

Q Lack of procedural allocation & follow ups

While the amount was immaterial, the applicant stated that it showed lack of sanctity in procedural follow ups. Nangia added, "As per the circulars of the municipal corporation, it has also been decided that if the tax collected was more the previous year and some refund needs to be made, the tax demand for the corresponding year will be adjusted accordingly."

Municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte was not available for comment.