Promises of Good Governance, Transparency need to be Reflected in Action.

                                                                                     
                                                                                             Dt: 24 Nov 2017

To, 

Hon. Commissioner,

NMMC, Navi Mumbai. 

Sub:  Promises of Good Governance, Transparency need to be    

          Reflected in Action. 

                Now-a-days, every one makes promises about ‘Good governance and transparency’. But, unfortunately in reality “action” totally differs from the promises made.  Politicians and Executives of NMMC also make such promises but we citizens never found reflections of such promises in Day to Day functioning of NMMC.  

              Recently, media news has also put a big question mark over performance of NMMC. We citizens fell that, Transparency and Good Governance should be “visible” to Public. The objective of this letter is to underline this issue.  

    All assurances need to  be translated into action:

                     A big question is that, in what respect transparency is there in NMMC? Citizens are totally unaware of NMMC’s functioning. Citizens are totally in dark about the projects and the cost of the projects. Ground reality is that, citizens have to struggle a lot to get information through RTI also. They have to fight and need consistent follow-up to receive the information. In spite of all this, if somebody claims of transparency in NMMC he needs to be saluted.  

         Actually, we citizens always have a big question that everyone speaks about transparency then what pulls back them from uploading all relevant data on website of NMMC. Local governance, state Government and central Government speak about transparency, but still citizens are kept in darkness which proves ultimately that all the tears about transparency are “crocodile’s tears.” In case one claims that, ‘Like election manifesto issue ‘transparency’ is also a weapon to misguide the citizens,’ then nothing wrong in it.

  GOOD  GOVERNANCE:   A FOUL PLAY:

               Unnecessary work like repetitive repairing of footpath / gutters/ manholes/ roads, replacement of paver blocks, benches, unnecessary reconstruction of bus stops is considered as a fundamental right by every corporators .  Everybody, when gets elected starts with same work. 

   Question need to answer that, is all this is a part of so called vision of NMMC? Notices for work issued in news paper underlines the said fact. Such Siphoning of crores of rupees shows the insensibility of administration.  It needs to change urgently.

               Recently, the corporation seems to be functioning in a totally uncontrolled way.  Because of expenditure over unnecessary work, more than 50 % of funds gets siphoned off. Off course, its open secret that the “repetitive unnecessary work” is made possible by virtue of vested interest of politicians and bureaucrats.  To cope up with the skyrocketing expenditure, the simplest way adopted by NMMC is raising the taxes and further rise in fund is used blindly. This vicious cycle is being repeated years together.  “Money saved is money gained” principle is buried due to Non-Transparent way of functioning of NMMC. 

                Just take a simple example of NMMC head office. Due to lack of proper arrangement lakhs of rupees get wasted over light bill. Another such example is street lights.  Proper management of streetlight / high mast  ON-OFF system can save daily around 40-50 thousand as the number of street lights in Navi Mumbai are around 32 thousand . Several such things are there where NMMC can save huge money.  These are the just representative examples of wastages of fund . But who cares for people’s money?

                  “Repetitive unnecessary work, maximum rate, minimum quality” seems to be the hidden policy of NMMC.

 

            With current scenario the claim of Good Governance turns as a foul play. Every Mayor and commissioner repetitively made claim that fund will be sanctioned only for ‘required work’. But till today ‘required work’ term remains unidentified. Whose requirement? Requirement of officers, leaders, contractor or citizens?

PROOF OF HONESTY LIES IN ACTION:

       Hon. Commissioner Sir, the proof of honesty, transparency and good governance always lies in action.  So in your era citizens are expecting ground level actions which reflect all the qualities that come under ‘good governance’

      

     The possible steps to fulfill your assurance of Good and transparent governance are:

·       FINANCIAL TRANSPERENCY : To upload the information of each and every work with full of information like : nature of work , cost, period for which quality guarantee is assured, info about of the same work which was carried out previously , contractors’ details, name of the NMMC  officer who is the in charge of work.

·       NEED TO AVOID REPETATIVE WORK: Its has been observed that some of the work like repairing of footpaths , gutters, covers of manholes, roads , dividers, circles need to be avoided. To curb the siphoning of peoples money on such unwanted repetitive work, for every work maintenance clause of certain period must be included in the tender clause. For example ones foot path constructed 7 years free of cost maintenance must be mandatory with contractors.  Same strategy should be obtained for all works.

·       Mandatory visit of OFFICERS:   Overall culture that is well known to every one that, about 80% Engineers/ executives never visit the site. They use to trust the concerned contractors for “quality of work”. This has to  change urgently.   

       Make mandatory on all executives to visit the work site and upload the photo of work on website at all steps of work. This will definitely stand fruitful to curb the vested interest of the contractors and executives.

·       Gio Tagging of work:  Here after to avoid repetitive unnecessary work Gio Tagging of work policy can be implemented.

·        For illegal construction both the ward officer and local corporators must be held totally responsible and accountable.

·       Before presenting the budget it must be made mandatory to carry out the audit of previous year. Along with this TRIPARTY Audit must be made mandatory.

·       TIME BOUND TRANSFER POLICY: As all aware of the root cause behind corruption is vested interest of the officers and a handshake with politicians. To curb this, the system must be so redefined that every employee gets transferred automatically after completion of 3 years tenure. Inter-transfer between different corporations will turn the best solution.

·       Provision of multilayer DUCT: While construction of any road the utmost importance must be given for provision of multilayer duct, laying of crossing pipes after 300/500 meters, to curb wasting of money on frequent repairing of roads due to digging.

·        

Need to monitor department’s Reply:  It has been observed that, whenever any complaint/letter to Commissioner’s office, it has been forwarded to concerned dept very promptly. But as there is no cross checking policy, concerned dept use to dumb that letter.

     To overcome such act by various dept, hereafter make mandatory to concerned dept to mark copy of reply to commissioners office along with the complainer.

·       Availability of ONLINE info of use of corporater’s  fund.

·       “All equally responsible means nobody is responsible” seems to be working culture of corporations because of which quality deterioration responsibility remains without unearth.  Responsibility policy should be fixed.  For every work certain years Quality assurance  need to be made mandatory.

·       Provision of Active participation of citizens needs to be framed.  

        Make some provision so that citizens can play vital role in informing “ZERO GROUND REALITY FACT” of any work to commissioner office.  Make availability of Whats app number or mail id where citizens can inform the grass route reality of their region to commissioner.  

·       Need of review of illegal /unauthorized water connections.

·       Cash transactions for paying different bills to NMMC need to avoid. By giving special discount, all transactions must be made mandatory ‘e-transactions’.

·       Implementation of “citizen’s charter” to gear up the delivery system for people.

·       ON LINE GRIEVANCE PORTAL: To overcome the current one way communication culture from citizen to administration only, some responsive team should be set, so that the grievances from people will not remain unattended. For every complaint citizens must get docket number.

·       Property tax is the main source of income for NMMC. It is learn that in most cases carpet area is shown less than the actual area to decrease the property tax of those citizens.  As NMMC does settlement with defaulters, most defaulters deliberately avoids paying property tax regularly. Hence, stringent action needed against the defaulters.  All employees and officers working for more than 3 years at same department need to be transferred as it is a sensitive department. 

·       Utmost attention has to be paid to local health centers of NMMC.

·       CURB CORRUPTION IN EDUCATION Dept: Education is a Nobel cause. Corruption in purchasing of 27 items which is provided to students need to be curb. Market strategy is that, when purchased quantity increases, rate decreases but in case of NMMC it was found that in spite of huge quantity purchase rate is almost double/triple than the market standard rate. Quality of purchased items is also a big issue.

·       Implementation of Autonomous vigilance section to get rid of sky rocketing corruption.

·       Till today the contractor decides which work is to be carried out. For said work right from preparation of file and sanctioning same will be totally done by contractor. An officer just acts as a rubber stamp with greased palm.  This culture of preparation of file by contractor and moving same from table to table urgently need to stop.

·       Mandatory field visit to all officers before taking any decision about work or sanctioning bill of said work. Current culture is that even a ward officer never visits his ward area.

·       General observation is that, action against street hawkers is just a eyewash. All drama get over 2/3 hours.  Some of the local vendors claim that they are paying “hafta” of RS. 1000 to Rs. 5000 as per the place of business and turnover of business. 

·       Unwanted repetitive work of garden department must be overruled. Mango garden located at Sector 4, BELAPUR is best example of unwanted work. Recently total wall of garden replaced, same is the case with DUCK pond.

·       FILE TRACKING SYSTEM:  To curb the purposeful act of delay and deny, “Table to Table file Movement TRACK system” need to be implemented urgently. On the back side of front cover of file columns like “ Sr. No , receive date , name of the officer and section , remarks ,  reason for denial or sanction, sign of officer , dispatch date”  must be printed. Such act will be useful to track vested interest. This system will also highlight the handful of honest employees and their honesty be reflected on paper for their duteous style of work and also it is necessary to face the blame of inefficiency because of corrupt ones.

        Off course several ways are there if administration and politicians keeps hands in hand (like that currently for making corruption) to curb the corruption and to make optimistic use of fund collected from people.   The budget of NMMC is about 1800 crores and is a huge amount. Proper use of fund will definitely turn useful to prove all the labels like “SMART CITY , PLANNED CITY” of Navi Mumbai into reality. 

     

      Thanking you.

                                          

               Looking positively for feedback.                                                                                             

SUDHIR L. DANI,                                                                                                                                                

  Copy for information:

·       Hon. Chief Minister, Maharashtra.

·       Hon. Mayor, NMMC.

·       Secretary, UDD, Maharashtra.