DNA:
Mumbai: Sunday, 16 November 2014.
Has water
been sprinkled everyday? Has there been enough security and regular maintenance
of the ground in use? Around 50-odd residents gathered give a resounding
"no" to such questions. They were participating in a
first-of-its-kind 'Jan Sunwai' (public hearing), held on Saturday to discuss
findings of an audit conducted by citizens on the money spent by corporation on
a garden.
The audit was
done of the Bhavani Mata Kridangan, Palav Marg, Dadar (east) by social audit
local team (SALT), a group of citizens formed by NGO Mahiti Adhikar Manch
aiming to create awareness of social audit by citizens through use of
"inspection" clause in RTI Act.
The garden,
measuring 5,703 sq mts, receives a whopping Rs 1.4 lakh per month for
maintenance since January 2013. The contract ends in 2016 and is supposed to
look after the maintenance, lawn, watering, trees, cleanliness, painting of
walls and seats and security.
Residents at
the meeting said that hurriedly a new lawn has come up, shrubs placed, stems of
trees and seats coloured and gate replaced again since last week. They suspect
it to be in anticipation of the hearing. Otherwise cleaning and paintings was a
yearly sponsor of residents every Navratri. "It was we who used to colour
the seats and walls because BMC always claimed they did not have money. We
sponsored the colour and their workers would paint it. We just got to know that
the corporation pays for all this," said Prakash Bhosale of Shivneri Seva
Mandal that conducts a number of activities at the ground.
This was part
of the series of the public hearing SALT intends to encourage among vast
sections of people to check the public money spent by the authorities that goes
unnoticed. "As part of a social audit campaign we look at namely four
aspects of civic services. These are gardens, beautification, schools and
toilets. We want citizens to participate not to find faults but to seek
accountability from the government. We do this with a motto that you ask the
government how it spends your money as you have the right to know," said
Bhaskar Prabhu, also member, technical advisory committee of the municipal corporation
that looks to suo motto declare information.
Though there
were instructions from the municipal commissioner that officials attend it,
none was present. "We have not taken responsibility of accounting. If we
want complete swaraj in the sense of what Tilak used to talk about, we should
start that," said Shailesh Gandhi, former central information commissioner
who encouraged residents to participate in such audits. "We will also ask
the corporation to give break up of bill of quantities and on what basis they
came to the Rs1.4 lakh monthly figure," he added.
.JPG)
.JPG)
