BMC paid Rs 1.7 cr as consultancy fees to retired officials

Free press journal: Mumbai: Friday, 01 May 2015.

RTI query raises doubts on the expenditure of taxpayers’ money. In what could be a blatant misuse of taxpayers’ money, the BMC paid Rs 1.7 crore in the last five years to its own retired officers as consultancy fees. This was revealed in reply to an RTI query, where it was stated that the money was paid to retired officials who were appointed either as consultants or officers on special duty (OSD) from January 2010 to February 2015.

The RTI reply stated that more than 40 retired officers were appointed as OSDs or consultants in various BMC departments in the last five years. The RTI reply further pointed out that the civic chiefs during this period failed to take mandatory permission from the state government while appointing the retired officers.

Not only did the civic chiefs fail to take permission, but they also gave extensions to the retired officials. The RTI reply shows that N K Kusnoor, who was appointed as a consultant for the BMC’s hydraulic department, got an extension recently and the civic body paid him Rs 29.5 lakh in the past two and a half years.

The RTI query, filed by activist Anil Galgali, further revealed that some retired officers were kept on monthly retainership and were earning about Rs 50,000 per month.

The reply showed that OSDs PV Kulkarni (Assistant Commissioner-Special Engineer), S S Palav (Assistant Commissioner-Special Engineer) and Sneha Khandekar (Director) were given extensions twice by the Commissioner, whereas N H Kusnoor (Additional Commissioner-Projects), S D Khandare (Deputy Chief Engineer-Planning) and Uday Mande (Deputy Chief Engineer) were granted extensions once.

It further revealed that the BMC paid about Rs 99 lakh to the retired officials in the last two or three years. These retired officials and the total payment made to them are: NH Kusoor (Rs.29.5 lakhs), S S Palav (Rs 13.1 lakhs), Sneha Khandekar (Rs 10.47 lakhs), PV Kulkarni (Rs 9.87 lakhs), S D Khandare (Rs 9 lakhs), Shashikant Shinde (Rs 7.2 lakhs), Govind Rathod (Rs 6 lakhs), Uday Mande (Rs 5.71 lakhs) and Babasaheb Pawar (Rs 5.71 lakhs)