No one knows where BMC spent Rs 1,200 crore: Chidambaram

URGING THE urban youth to vote for better governance, former Union minister P Chidambaram on Sunday spoke to a group of youngsters in Bandra, asking themtocasttheirvotesinthecivic elections for a change of guard in the Mumbai municipality.

“The Brihanmumbai Municipalcorporationhasnotbeenauditedforthelast7years...fromthe entirebmcwedon’tknowwhere Rs 1,200 crores have been spent. This amount is a huge hole,” said the senior Congress leader.

Emphasising that Mumbai requires technology to deal with its numerous issues, Chidambaram said Mumbai still suffered from problems usually faced by a small town. “No road here in Mumbai is of world class, actually it is not even first class,” he said at an interactive session at Bandra Fort.

As part of the Congress’s election campaigning, he first visited Lokhandwala in the western suburbs to interact with residents before meeting Dharavi’s residents of Tamil origin and then headed to Bandra.

Answering a question on the role of corporate governance in Mumbai, Chidambaram said, “...the problem lies in implementationandweshouldgivethecorporates the job and hold them responsible for not finishing it. When it comes to implementation, the government is notoriously incompetent.”

Earlier, in Lokhandwala, members of around 20 residents’ associations attended an interactive session with the former Union finance minister where they discussed the impact of demonetisation and the Union Budget on the economy.

He pointed out that the government’s decision had caused a drop in the GDP by 1 per cent and he predicted that the figure would drop further. He said demonetisation had not reduced corruption but had added to it and the move led to over 40 lakh people being rendered jobless.

Residents who attended the event remained undecided about their choice in the elections. Tarapore Garden Residents’ Association secretary Yatindra Pal said: “The government is now blaming the Shiv Sena for corruption in the civic body when they were in alliance with them for the entire duration.”