Corporators in unison speak against BMCs move of hiring PR agency

@nag228

Mumbai: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) corporator Prakash Gangadhare on Thursday dashed off a letter to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal vehemently opposing the appointment of a Public Relations (PR) agency for the management of the BMC’s public image. In his letter he has raised questions over whether the BMC is appointing a new PR agency and what will be the role of the BMC’s own PR department and also of media consultant Ram Dotonde.

Recently, the BMC had issued an advertisement inviting tender for the appointment of a PR agency to do the PR management work for the BMC, after which corporators from political parties began to raise their objection over the move. 

The city of Mumbai is known as the financial capital of the country. Mumbai is governed by an authorized authority, the BMC. Roads, schools, hospitals, maternity hospitals, parks, bridges, subways, widening of nallas, cleaning of nallas, providing facilities to persons with disabilities, water supply etc. in Mumbai are being undertaken by the BMC.

Many public interest decisions are taken by the municipality. Many schemes are implemented for the citizens, for the poor. The public relations department of the municipality is working to publicize all these works. The scope of this section is large. At present there are at least 30-40 officers and staff working in this department then too then BMC chief Ajoy Mehta had appointed Ram Dotonde as media consultant in 2017 at the commissioner’s office level and in his own authority.

Necessary permission of the Standing Committee and Municipal Council was not obtained for this appointment. The commissioner paid honorarium of Rs. 1 lakh 48 thousand per month to this officer in his own right. The Standing Committee had initially refused to pay the honorarium and withheld its proposal without approving it. But then the commissioner turned things around and finally after a few years the proposal to pay the officer’s honorarium was approved. 

However, while there was a publicity department in the corporation, what was the need for the appointment of a personal PR. The annual financial burden of all this on the BMC exchequer comes to about Rs. 18 lakhs. This means that the hard-earned money of the taxpayers was squandered. And now again, the BMC decided to appoint another agency for publicity work under the name of social media. Recently, a tender process has been set in motion for this. 

There will be a total of three public relations departments in the BMC, one official big team and the other two private. Mumbai Municipal Corporation may be the only municipal corporation in the world or in Asia which is being publicized in three ways and millions of rupees are being wasted on it for a single purpose.  On the one hand, the BMC is being crippled by an epidemic like Corona.

While the revenue income of the BMC has been declining, on the other hand the expenditure on Covid-19 mitigation measures is increasing. Add to that the BMC has plans to incur more financial burden on the corporation. 

Similarly, the octroi tax system which was a source of income for the BMC has been discontinued from 2017 and Goods and Service Tax (GST) system has been introduced instead. The BMC is being compensated for the loss of octroi tax revenue in the form of monthly reimbursements by the State Government. However, GST will be paid only till 2022.  In such a grim situation, it would be a wrong decision for the BMC to waste its money on such an appointment for a private agency for publicity and squander lakhs of rupees on it.

Employees and officers of the closed Octroi department should be used with a little training in the public relations department. If the required number of officers and employees are recruited and the backlog is filled, a permanent publicity platform can be made available to the municipality. Also, the municipality should take a decision regarding the earlier appointee Ram Dotonde.

The BJP corporator Prakash Gangadhare has written a letter to the BMC Municipal Commissioner, IS Chahal asking him to quash this tender process.

“Already the BMC has spent a lot of funds for the betterment of the citizens during the crucial time of the Covid 19 disease which is still going on. The BMC is facing a financial crisis due to the expense and on top of that this appointment for the PR agency is a total waste of money and I firmly oppose it. It has become a trend now in BMC for every work they appoint a consultant, then what work will the PR department of the BMC do? The work of managing reputation is to be done by the PR department,” said Prakash Gangadhare, BJP corporator. “

Opposition leader and Congress group leader, Ravi Raja is irked by this decision of appointing a new agency for BMC’s reputation management. 

He said, “During this pandemic BMC has done a wonderful job to save and serve the citizens. Each and all citizens know about the hard work done by the BMC, there is no need of appointing any new PR agency and wasting taxpayers hard earned money. This decision is definitely to benefit some personal relation by the means of this appointment. BMC has its own PR department and also Ram Dotonde was appointed by the then chief Ajoy Mehta, his tenure is also over long back then why BMC is paying him hefty amounts, giving car and house to stay and what work he does no one knows about it. I will raise this issue in the coming meeting.”