Ward office of BMC pays more than HQ

MUMBAI: Can a civic ward office run up an electric bill more than the BMC head office or Mantralaya? Sounds bizarre, but this is precisely what has happened.
According to information ferreted out by activist Chetan Kothari under the RTI Act from the civic body, P/North ward office, covering Kandivli and neighbouring areas, has run up a power bill of a whopping Rs 9.49 cr in 2009-10.
While L ward in Kurla received a bill of Rs 8.47 crore for the same year, H/East ward officewhich covers the eastern segments of Bandra, Khar, Santa Cruz and Kalinapaid an electric bill of Rs 7.46 cr in 2009-2010 whereas the BMC HQ paid only Rs 2.80 cr and Mantralaya, Rs 5.64 cr.
Assistant municipal commissioner (L ward) R B Dhakne was unavailable for comment. However, A L Wagralkar, assistant municipal commissioner (H/East) said, The amount cant be so high. I will check the records tomorrow and let you know.
A BMC official said, Probably, the bill paid for street lights and other utilities in the wards might have been clubbed together with the power bill of the ward office buildings and furnished to Kothari. It is impossible that a ward office will run up such absurdly huge bills.
However, Kothari said: It cannot be a mistake. I had put RTI applications in the same format to each and every one of the 24 municipal wards in Mumbai. Like all other ward offices, L and H/East ward offices too have replied to me in writing in the same format. A local corporator said: H/East has a large number of slums. It is possible that illegal power connections have been taken from the ward office.
L ward office stated that it received a bill for Rs 14.38 lakh in 2007-2008 and Rs 4.55 cr in 2008-2009. H/East ward office has given information that it paid Rs 3.36 cr in 2007-2008, Rs 3.98 cr in 2008-2009 and in the last financial year the figure has shot up to Rs 7.46 cr. If the information is wrong, the officials concerned should be punished, Ashish Shelar, senior corporator observed. S ward in Bhandup received a bill of Rs 4.80 cr last fiscal.
Interestingly, while CM Ashok Chavan has personally been appealing to citizens to cut down on electricity consumption, Mantralayas electric bill has increased from Rs. 4.25 cr to Rs 5.64 cr in 2009-2010. A Mantralaya official, in turn, chose to blame it on the rising power prices. However, information given to Kothari shows that the number of units consumed by Mantralaya had increased from 45,09,117 to 45,77,626.
Power consumed by Raj Bhavan has shot up from 4.10 lakh units to 8.69 units between 2007-2008 and 2009-10. The governor ran up a bill of Rs 94.81 lakh last fiscal, while in 2008-09 it was Rs 87.54 lakh.
While Vilasrao Deshmukh had cut down power consumption in the CMs official bungalow Varsha from 2.39 lakh units to 2.21 lakh units, the present CM Ashok Chavans consumption has increased to 2.85 lakh units. Home minister R R Patil too has cut down consumption from 51,509 units to 45,642 units.