TIMES VIEW:

MUMBAI: What was touted as a Rs 10-crore technological investment to streamline the functioning of the BMC's legal department turned out to be another scam brewing in the civic body . But the plot to mint money by floating multiple tenders to develop a software was nipped in the bud after a discussion with Bombay high court officials. A similar software is in use in the court and the BMC, which woke up to the scam, decided to get the program developed in-house through its IT department at 1% of the tender cost. The software was success fully tested in the presence of BMC boss Ajoy Mehta on Wednesday and the legal department has sought a test-run on Friday before implementing it. The software helps track la wyers representing the BMC in thousands of court cases along with their fees, case status and administrative reports. The program also has a feature of automatic selection of lawyers to cut allegations of favouritism.The BMC's legal department had invited the tender last November. One company responded. The tender was reissued with revised conditions, but again the bidder was the same. A senior official then asked the legal department to float a third tender on March 2016, with the same result. Controversy erupted after the multiple tender invitations and the municipal commissioner asked the IT department to handle the issue.BMC's legal and IT departments are supervised by different additional municipal commissioners.Sanjay Deshmukh, who oversees the IT department, asked officials to examine the proposal afresh along with programing requirements and also discussed the issue with Bombay high court officials, where the software is in use. “We contacted a Bengaluru-based IT company which quoted Rs 50 lakh to develop the program. But we decided to give our IT department a chance,“ said a senior officer.Finally, BMC chief Ajoy Mehta scrapped the idea to invite a tender again and within three months, the IT department successfully developed the program for a few lakhs.This is outrageous. It just once again proves the deep rot that has set into the civic administration, which runs India's richest city.Public money is shamelessly squandered and siphoned off into the pockets of the crooked.This case is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. A fraudulent Rs 10 crore work is completed for merely a fraction of the cost only shows how tax payers money is wasted.