Zero salary, but over 10,000 applicants!

MUMBAI: They don’t earn any salary. There are no significant perquisites either. But the 227 vacancies to be filled in the forthcoming Mumbai municipal corporation election have so far attracted around 10,000 applicants.

The election to 227-member BMC is sure to throw up a major challenge to all four major political parties as a record number of enthusiasts have shown an interest in running the city. What’s intriguing is more and more party workers are aspiring to be ‘corporator’ even though there are no financial benefits associated with it.

All this is only on paper, though. Officially, corporators are eligible to make it to the BPL (below poverty line) category. They receive a lump sum amount of Rs 4,000 per month as honorarium plus an allowance of Rs 150 per meeting with a cap of four meetings a month. This means no member can earn more than Rs 600 as allowance every month.

But this ostensibly impoverished lot runs the richest corporation in the country making themselves richer in the process. “If one sticks to his or her earnings as a corporator, the salary is not enough to make two-ends meet for a family of four. But the rulers living by the rule book is an Utopian concept,” a top BMC official comment
ed when asked to explain how the municipal mechanism works.

The real booty for corporators is to become a member of any key committee that sanctions large projects. The most sought after committees are the improvement committee and the standing committee.

The former has enough resources at its disposal to undertake major infrastructure work while the latter actually controls the BMC resources. “These are the places that encourage a kind of bond between contractors and the executing machinery. The ‘real’ money comes from these contractors,” a official said. “The nexus is unbreakable. They are virtually two sides of the same coin,” he noted.

As of now the BMC is eyeing projects entailing an investment of over Rs 22,000 crore. These are all new projects yet to
take off but similar expenses are involved in many of the ongoing projects.

The less privileged — those not on such ‘attractive’ committees — corporators have another way to mint money. They keep on complaining about ongoing projects in their respective territories till the builder associated with them ‘satisfies’ the concern corporator.

Then their is huge constituency development fund. The BMC provides for Rs 25 lakh for each corporator every year. Though the funds are not directly handed over to them, it is the corporators’ discretion to use the money. He or she recommends the works to be undertaken in their wards for which the BMC officials release funds.

“Here it’s an unwritten tripartite agreement. The corporator, BMC officials and the developer all share the riches,” sources explained. It is a lot of money considering that the BMC has 227 corporators and everyone irrespective of their status — ruling and opposition alike — have access to the fund.

It’s not that everyone of them is happy working under these condition. For example, Parag Alavani, BJP’s dynamic corporator wants proper “all proof professional mechanism” for corporators. “One must admit that it’s a very demanding full-time job. Feed these corporators properly and make them more accountable,” he said.