BMC reduces reimbursement of councillor’s mobile bills to Rs1100

POINT TO NOTE The Mayor & the Deputy Mayor will be given unlimited cover

Cost cutting in the annual budget of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has influenced its municipal secretary department to take a hard look at its expenditures.

The department has tabled a proposal in the group leader meeting to reduce the reimbursement of mobile bills to Rs 1,100 for councillors and Rs 3,000 for chairpersons.

The amount will be transferred to the councillors’ accounts directly.

However, the opposition parties said the proposal will be opposed in the next group leader meet. Ravi Raja, opposition leader in the civic body, said, “As a local representative, a mobile phone is very essential for a councillor in order to be available for the citizens. Moreover, we are constantly in touch with the administration to follow up for pending civic work.”

In their previous tenure, councillors were given up to Rs 1,250 for their mobile bills, but the limit has been brought down to Rs 1,100. Also, chairpersons of committees and wards were given a limit of Rs 4,250 but the new proposal tabled has proposed to bring down the limit to Rs 3,000. Councillors are unaware about the reason for reducing the limits of the bill. “Nowadays, a mobile bill of Rs 1,100 is not a huge amount. The civic body should cover an amount of Rs 2,000 at least for all 227 councillors,” said a councillor. Apart from free bus travel, councillors are given an allowance of Rs 400 for attending every general body meeting at the BMC headquarters.

According to the new proposal, the chairpersons of four statutory committees (standing, improvement, education and BEST) and six other committees along with the 17 ward committees will get a reimbursement of Rs 3,000 for their mobile bills.

The Mayor and the Deputy Mayor, however, will be given an unlimited cover which means that whatever bills they submit will be reimbursed directly into their accounts by the civic body.