Has water been sprinkled everyday? Has there been enough security and regular maintenance of the ground in use? Around 50-odd residents gathered give a resounding "no" to such questions. They were participating in a first-of-its-kind 'Jan Sunwai' (public hearing), held on Saturday to discuss findings of an audit conducted by citizens on the money spent by corporation on a garden.
The audit was done of the Bhavani Mata Kridangan, Palav Marg, Dadar (east) by social audit local team (SALT), a group of citizens formed by NGO Mahiti Adhikar Manch aiming to create awareness of social audit by citizens through use of "inspection" clause in RTI Act.
The garden, measuring 5,703 sq mts, receives a whopping Rs 1.4 lakh per month for maintenance since January 2013. The contract ends in 2016 and is supposed to look after the maintenance, lawn, watering, trees, cleanliness, painting of walls and seats and security.
Residents at the meeting said that hurriedly a new lawn has come up, shrubs placed, stems of trees and seats coloured and gate replaced again since last week. They suspect it to be in anticipation of the hearing. Otherwise cleaning and paintings was a yearly sponsor of residents every Navratri. "It was we who used to colour the seats and walls because BMC always claimed they did not have money. We sponsored the colour and their workers would paint it. We just got to know that the corporation pays for all this," said Prakash Bhosale of Shivneri Seva Mandal that conducts a number of activities at the ground.
This was part of the series of the public hearing SALT intends to encourage among vast sections of people to check the public money spent by the authorities that goes unnoticed. "As part of a social audit campaign we look at namely four aspects of civic services. These are gardens, beautification, schools and toilets. We want citizens to participate not to find faults but to seek accountability from the government. We do this with a motto that you ask the government how it spends your money as you have the right to know," said Bhaskar Prabhu, also member, technical advisory committee of the municipal corporation that looks to suo motto declare information.
Though there were instructions from the municipal commissioner that officials attend it, none was present. "We have not taken responsibility of accounting. If we want complete swaraj in the sense of what Tilak used to talk about, we should start that," said Shailesh Gandhi, former central information commissioner who encouraged residents to participate in such audits. "We will also ask the corporation to give break up of bill of quantities and on what basis they came to the Rs1.4 lakh monthly figure," he added.
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