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KMC accounts panel to submit audit report for the first time

By Mrs Gupta, Section Kolkata Municipal Corporation
Posted on Fri Feb 16, 2007 at 05:35:42 AM EST

For the first time in the history of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), an audit report will be submitted on February 22 at the KMC house by the municipal accounts committee. Although such committees were there earlier, KMC hardly maintained its accounts, claimed members of the present accounts committee which was formed on October 18, 2005.

"There was a backlog of 11 years in the calculation of the accounts which has almost been adjusted by us," claimed Atin Ghosh, the chairman of the accounts committee.

The seven-member committee has decided to put forward certain positive suggestions in order to avoid any miscalculations in the future. One of the suggestions states: "The controlling officer of all the departments has to keep a track of receipts and has to forward them to the accounts department every three months."

According to Ghosh, the accounts department advances loans to the various departments for either purchasing new products or for renovation. Once the particular department buys these products, it is supposed to send the receipt to the accounts department.

"But this was not done earlier and thus there was a great discrepancy between the loan amount and the amount in the receipt bill," said Ghosh. He also added that: "According to the KMC Act, if a person liable to settle/adjust accounts does not do it before his tenure ends, then his pension can be withheld."

The second suggestion is of initiating a "mobile assessment team". "Each borough should have such a team which will include officers from the corporation and a local executive engineer. This team will travel all over the borough and find out all about KMC's assets and maintain a record of it," said Ghosh. According to the accounts committee, there are assets which belong to the corporation but there is no written proof of it in the registers and in order to avoid this situation in the future the "asset register should be updated every three months".

The Negotiable Instrument Act says that in case a cheque received by a third party bounces, then the KMC has the right to sue the erring party within a month. But if the party is not sued within a month's time, the party is not liable to pay the entire amount. "KMC has lost Rs 35 crore in this manner only 15 per cent of which has been reclaimed", said a source in the committee.

Source- http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=222523

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