Check if funds are sanctioned before submitting proposal: PMC chief

PMC chief Mahesh Pathak

In a bid to streamline release of civic funds, Pune municipal commissioner Mahesh Pathak has made it mandatory for all civic departments to check if monetary allocation has been sanctioned for their proposed developmental projects in the civic budget before submitting their proposal.

PMC chief Mahesh Pathak

The move comes after it came to light that on several occasions the administrative department has initiated the tendering process without checking if it's in the budgetary provision.

The civic officials would have to now first check with the accounts department if money has been allotted for the proposed works.

‘Maintain discipline'
The written order issued by the commissioner reads: "Many times despite not having adequate funds in the budget, various departments send proposals of development works for administrative approval. This is clear breach of administrative discipline. That's why henceforth before finalising any tender, it has to go to the chief accountant first and after confirming budgetary provision for the work, it can go to the tender cell department for final processing."

A new beginning
"The new system has already started. It has resulted in more workload, as each and every tender proposal is now coming to my office," said Ulka Kalaskar, chief accountant, PMC.

As per the new practice, the PMC accounts department will manually check if the proposed development work is listed in the budget and if the amount quoted matches with that mentioned in the tender.

However, after many departments began to send their proposals without mentioning any details regarding the work, the accounts department has now come out with a specific format to manage the workload.

Fall in line
"We have issued a written format to all departments and asked them to submit tender proposals by giving all details like on which page of the budget the development work is mentioned, is there any transfer of funds to complete this work and the exact funds approved and currently available. So, now we are receiving tender proposals in a systematic manner," Kalaskar added.