No attendance, yet, BBMP released Rs 5.15 crore salary to contract workers!

A report from State Audit Department has revealed that BBMP administration has released salaries to housekeeping staff, data entry operators, IT staff, home guards and sweepers without any attendance record.

HM Veeresh, retired bank employee and RTI activist who obtained the documents from chief accounts office of BBMP says, the State Audit Department has mentioned about the serious lapses in the BBMP administration of giving salaries over Rs 5 crore to BBMP contractor workers without any attendance. 

"The BBMP voucher states that a salary of Rs 5,15,52,085 was cleared by BBMP. But interestingly the staff who have drawn the salary have no attendance record, hence it raises suspicion on the transparency of the accounts department," said Veeresh.

He further added that, despite several representations to BBMP to reply on the issue, there was no response.

The staff including, housekeeping, data entry operators, IT staff, home guards and sweepers in each zone are given salary clearance by Assistant Controller of Finance in each zone. These lapses could have been checked zone wise, but the authorities have failed.

Netra Narayan, Chairperson of BBMP Accounts Committee says, this was practiced during the BJP administration in BBMP in 2014-2015. The Congress formed the council along with JD(S) only in 2015 and hence it reflects the failure of previous administration.

"BJP was in power from 2010 to 2015. If we consider the audit report, the administration lapses will come to notice. I have asked my assistant to keep all the reports ready as I will take the matter up in the BBMP council meeting," she said and added, henceforth all the contract workers signing the attendance register will be made to punch in and out on bio metric machine.

Former BBMP Mayor, Manjunath Reddy criticised the previous administration for misappropriations and also said the IT heads in BBMP should also be held responsible for the same.

"Every worker, be it permanent or on contract in the BBMP will have to show his/her attendance, based on which salary is released. This measure is important to prevent fund leakage. But BJP which came to power for the first time in the BBMP between 2010 and 2015, ignored all the warnings and continued to loot the public money," he said.

NR Ramesh, City BJP spokesperson and former BBMP ruling party leader also expressed doubts on the issue of releasing salary without any record and demanded that even contract workers should be brought under the biometric attendance system.