BMC gets over 70,000 complaints against illegal construction on its 1916 number

Moneylife‎: Mumbai: Sunday, October 16, 2016.

The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) or BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had received almost 21% complaints on its complaint number 1916 over the past 33 months, reveals a reply received under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

RTI Activist Anil Galgali had filed the application seeking details of complaints received on the dedicated telephone number. As per the information provided by the BMC Disaster Management Cell to Galgali, out of the total complaints of 3.40 lakh, about 21% or 70,143 are about illegal construction activities from across the city. Out of the total complaints received by BMC, over 3 lakh were sorted out and around 36,647 complaints are still shown as pending, as per the RTI reply.

In 2014, total 1.57 lakh complaints were registered by citizens. Out of these 18,578 are still shown 'pending' in the BMC records. Next year, the number of complaints came down to 1.17 lakh, out of which 2,909 are still pending. The trend has not changed and the number of complaints is likely to register a substantial fall this year too, Galgali says.

Of the complaints received, Govandi M East with 17,391 calls has registered the highest number of complaints regarding Maintenance department. This is followed by Chembur M West (13,733) and Kurla L Ward (10,697).

In Building and Factory department complaints, Kurla L Ward takes the lead with 15,845 complaints and is followed by Govandi M East (9,457) and Chembur M West (8,068), the RTI reply reveals.

Galgali, in a letter to BMC Commissioner Ajoy Mehta has asked the Corporation to start declaring a 'worst ward award' on monthly basis as well as shame non-performing officers who are not resolving grievances of citizens. Most complaints are pertaining at ward level in the Building and Factory department as BMC officers deliberately ignore the complaints, Galgali alleged.