Bribe slur on BMC executive engineer, complaint goes viral

An executive engineer of the BMC has been charged with demanding huge bribes for clearing building proposals. A complaint letter written by developers from the Wadala-Matunga-Dadar belt alleging harassment and corruption by the engineer has gone viral on the social media.

The developer's forum has alleged that BMC’s executive engineer Chandrakant P.Metkar has been harassing developers and delaying projects by demanding huge bribes, over Rs 70 lakhs in one case.

“Such illegal demands by a high ranking public servant is gross abuse of power and authority and is like an extortion or day light robbery. His conduct is defeats the very purpose of ‘Ease of Doing Business initiative by the Municipal Commissioner’”, the letter of the Wadala Matunga Dadar Developers’ Forum said.

The letter dated June 28 was sent to the municipal chief, the anti-corruption bureau, CBI and the income tax department. It claimed that officials in the BMC grossly misuse their power and abuse their authority by demanding huge bribes to clear building proposals.

One of the constructions was pending since more than a month because the engineer was demanding a bribe more than 70 lakhs, it said.

“File number EB/6958/FN/A was kept pending at the sub-engineer and assistant engineer level for more than two months between April 15 and June 20. It also mentions that a bribe of Rs 75 lakh was sought to give an occupation certificate to a project (file number EB/2955/FN/A),” a senior BMC official said.

The official said details of building proposals have now been uploaded online so that we can track the work detail but in this case, an inquiry will be conducted. “We can inquire if there is a specific case. Now that the building approvals system is online, we can easily track the time spent at each level. Also, remarks put on file are in the public domain,” the official added.