Standing Committe Approved budget to Nmmc General Body

26.02.09,
The approved NMMC budget 2009-2010 was presented in the General Body meet for discussions and deliberations With Sandeep Naik. The discussions on the budget would be held for two days. The Standing Committee proposed budget of Rs 1350.0743 crores has allocated additional funds for setting up a Citizen Help Desk, provding Citizen card, establishing an environment green house concept, beautification of the coastline and Palm Beach Road, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Memorial, Children Park with Museum, tourists spots, gateways, multi-purpose library, sculptors in gardens, street furniture with boards and maps, skywalks, swimming pool, indoor stadium, condominium works, aquarium, planetarium, science centre and holding ponds. The additional revenue proposed by the Standing Committee to be generated are Rs 20 crores from cess, Rs 10 crores from property Tax, rs 4 crores from Outdoor advertisement displays, Rs 5 crores from Development charges, Rs 1.70 crores from water supply, Rs 4 crores from road and trench digging permissions and Rs 83 lakh from sale of STP purified water.

NMMC standing committee chairman Sandeep Naik stays proposals for NMMC HQ for Discussions.

26.02.09,
The proposal for the construction of the NMMC HQ finally came to the NMMC Standing Committee this week. The earlier contractor of the project IVRCL lost the tender bid to Ashwini Infra-development Engineer and Contractors Pvt. Ltd. The latter bid the lowest for constructing the project that is Rs. 89 Crore 99 Lacs 47 Thousand 670. The proposal however awaits the Standing Committee’s approval. Since the administration brought this prestigious proposal without preparing any presentation and the members including J D Sutar, Namdeo Bhagat and others raised several queries, Chairman Sandeep Naik stayed the proposal. Addressing the members, Chairman Sandeep Naik said that the NMMC HQ that has been pending for years calls for setting a time frame this time round.

He also said that since this was a landmark project and was a specialized job, the NMMC must have a separate quality control department to monitor the HQ’s construction to nullify any room for errors or negligence.The Chairman also pointed out that the members were curious see and study the layout of the building plans to know where the various offices have been planned and how easily will these offices be accessible to the common public.

Hence, at the end of the discussions the proposal was stayed with the Chairman assuring to approve it before the election code of conduct came into effect.

Standing Committee chairman Sandeep Naik okays e-tendering.

The pending part of e-tendering was passed by the standing committee of Navi Mumbai Muncipal Corporation (NMMC) on Wednesday. NMMC has decided to e-tendering process for various development works to be taken by the civic body from now onwards. Earlier, some of the corporators had opined that most local residents wishing to apply for small contracts will not be able to do so if the civic body decides to go ahead with this scheme.

“In this meeting we have decided to implement e-tendering for all projects, which are estimated to cost more than Rs.25 lakh. Under the Jawaharlal Nehru National urban renewal mission (JNNURM), it is mandatory to call the tenders through e-tendering so that all contractors get equal chance. Once the contractors become familiar with the process, e-tendering will be implemented in all tenders,” Said standing committee chairman, Sandeep Naik.

Corporators opined that the phase-by-phase implementation of e-tendering would help those contractors who are not tech-savy or computer literate.

“Normal tender process will not be stopped completely. Mostly, tenders called by NMMC are of small amounts below Rs.10 Lakh. Tenders passed below Rs.10-15 Lakh are attended by local contractors. Some of them are not tech-savy also. So this phase-by-phase change will help all of them to understand the process,” said Avinash lad, Corporator. Almost 1,600 tenders are passed every year for different projects by the NMMC. Meanwhile, NMMC officials said they would set up a help desk at the NMMC headquarters to help the contractors apply online. The civic body would also conduct a 15 –day training workshop for the contractors.

“Though e-tendering, new contractors will get a chance to apply for various works,” opined municipal Commissioner Vijay Nahata.

NMMC Budget figure to increase by Rs.45.53 Crore

Saturday,21.02.09,
The discussion on the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) budget 2009-10 was Concluded recently by the Standing Committee and now the budget will be proposed at the general body meeting. The meeting is scheduled to take place from February 24-28,in which the budget of NMMT,Education Committee and the NMMC will take their final Shape.

After a three-day discussion, the Chairman of the standing committee Sandeep Naik has proposed an increase of Rs.45.53 Crore in the Present proposed budget, NMMC commissioner, Vijay Nahata, Previously Proposed a budget of Rs.1,304.58 cr, and now the proposed budget is of Rs.1,350.07 cr.

In this Budget, a Citizen Help Desk has been proposed,through Which residents can lodge online complaints and seek information on various issues, including online tax filling,etc. Apart from this, in order to Imrpove the existing Website, a sum of Rs. 50 Lakh has been added in the budget. Also,for the Promotion of Conventional energy sources, approximately Rs.1 Crore have been set aside in order to Procure a Solar heater, green house, water recycling facilities,etc.

For the promotion of tourisim in various nodes in the city, NMMC has proposed an additional amount of Rs 1.5 cr for the development of Parsik Hill, slums and Balaji and Nibban hillocks. A proper foothpath will be constructed next to the service road on Palm beach Road for the benefit of residents in the area.

Also, kerb stones are to be fitted on both sides of Palm beach road, for which a sum of Rs. 1 Crore has been proposed. Also to reduce number of accidents on this road, Rs.4 crore has been added in this budget, based on the suggestions by Standing Committee members.
A Sum of Rs.1.5 crore has been set aside for beautification projects in the city, such as the development of the seashore (Chowpati). The budget decided on for the construction of Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar Memorial amounts to Rs 4 Crore, apart from Constructing an entrance gate for the city, for which Rs 2 Crore has been kept aside. The Sum set aside for the development and maintenance of gardens is Rs.2 Crore,apart from Rs 2 Crore for the development of a scientific museum or children’s garden; for special libraries- Rs 2 Crore, for ponds- Rs Crore, tax collection-Rs 2 Crore and for an indoor game stadium, Rs 4 Crore has been added.

With the standing committee increasing its budget, the proposed income of NMMC and its target has also been revised. To increase NMMC’s income, a target od Rs.36.5 Crore has been included by the standing Committee.

From the cess department, an additional target of Rs 20 cr has been assigned under the Abhay Yogna Scheme for industries that fall under the NMMC jurisdiction. This department has been asked to improve the overall cess collection. Similarly, an additional Rs.10 Crore has been added to present target of the Property tax department. Apart from this, the standing committee wants the property tax department to keep check on various information technology companies inj the city and verify their documents.

From advertising department, an encroachment penalty, penalties on debris dumping, an amount of Rs 4 Cr has been added in their present target. In this action against violation of marginal spaces, illegal encroachment at CIDCO developed areas, Goathan, slum area; etc, has been suggested to earn additional revenue.

For road repair work, Rs 4 Crore has been added to the present proposed Rs 12 Crore. From Collections of fee on various things form industries, a sum of Rs 3.67 crore has been added in the budget in order to get revenue for various development works.

Chairman Sandeep Naik Steers Studied Discussions on Proposed NMMC Budget-2009-10.

28 Feb 2009,

The first two days of the budget discussions in NMMC Standing Committee saw Chairman Sandeep Naik steering a powerful debate and encouraging members to studied discussions rarely seen in any Standing Committee meet prior to this. The Standing Committee scheduled three back to back marathon meetings to discuss on the proposed NMMC Budget of 2009 – 2010. On day 1, only Chairman Sandeep Naik seemed to have studied the budget to have a healthy debate and discussion with the administration while on the second day, other members too joined the Chairman in the discussions. We bring to some of the highlights of the discussions:

• Chairman Sandeep Naik expressed disappointment on the figures of revenue generated from the cess department in the present fiscal. Despite DMC Cess Pendhari giving explanations on the incompetence of NMMC administration in several areas in this department, Sandeep Naik remained unconvinced and urged the administration to show more determination and efficiency in increasing the collection from cess this year.

• Chairman Sandeep Naik also asked the Town Planning Office to give a time frame when the administration will have the city’s development plan in place. For the last two budgets, members have been demanding the administration to ready the development plan but so far the latter has failed to do so, giving CIDCO an open ground to give away several plots and give permission for change of use.

• While the NMMC administration has been boasting of water audit, Sandeep Naik pointed out several lacunae in the water supply department and has asked NMMC administration to present a report on the actual supply of water to each segment of the city, the actual amount billed in each of this segment and the losses that the department has been incurring with the reason of the losses. Till day 2 of the discussions, the administration had not presented this report.

• Chairman Sandeep Naik also demanded NMMC to show the figures spent on making roads dug by contractors and the amount recovered from the contractors – this is one area where sources allege lot of corruption and wastage of public money takes place.

• On Day 2 of the discussions, other members of the Standing Committee joined the debates and discussions. On the subject of hoarding policy, Avinash Lad said that the corporation should increase the revenue projections from Rs. 4 Crore to atleast Rs. 10 Cr. Standing Committee Chairman Sandeep Naik backed the demand and said that the corporation should alteast earn a revenue of up to Rs. 20 Cr from hoardings and advertisements. He said that the corporators had passed the hoarding policy as was presented by the administration and hence some officer should be held responsible if the collection is not at par with the promised projections.

• Vijay Mane exposed the corruption prevailing in the NMMC Fire Fighting Dept and hinting at the dept’s last Chief R T Mhatre said that he had allowed fire norms violations to take place. He also exposed that it was due to this that several towers in the city indulged in the practice of getting a fire NOC and then removing the equipments from the same project to install it in another project.

• After long discussions on license fees, NMMC Commissioner Vijay Nahata promised to form a separate department for issuing licenses.

• There were also a lot of discussions on the increasing encroachment and illegal structures in the city. Namdeo Bhagat said that the city was turning into Ulhasnagar. Chairman Sandeep Naik said that if illegal constructions in the city were not controlled, then future generation would question their role and will not forgive them. On this Commissioner Vijay Nahata said that within 15 days the administration will restructure the anti-encroachment squad.

• The biggest expose of the discussions by the members was the alarming levels of corruption prevailing in the ward offices of NMMC. All members said that there is a racket working at ward office levels to collect clandestine (under-table) fees from hawkers and illegal structures and encroachments.

• Chairman Sandeep Naik appealed to the administration to keep the common man as the epicenter of all their work. Join us the same time tomorrow to watch a report on the final day of budget discussions from the Standing Committee meet and the outcome and impact of these discussions.