CAG report points at failures of Mumbai civic body

Mumbai, Dec 21 (IANS) A Comptroller and Auditor General of India report on Maharashtra’s local bodies Friday pointed out that the computerisation of the Mumbai civic body’s octroi (tax) wing has failed in its objective.

“The objective of computerisation of the octroi wing was to utilise the information technology and improve the efficiency, provide better service that would benefit the octroi payers, reduce manpower and eliminate misclassification,” the CAG report said.

“However, 10 years after initiation of the project, the modules are not fully implemented and majority of work centres are yet to be computerised. The application failed to achieve the intended benefit as envisaged by MCGM (Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai),” it added.

The report said the classification of articles according to the Mumbai Municipal Corporation (MMC) Act, 1888, was not followed for calculation of octroi.

“The octroi levied through the system was less by Rs.46.13 crore than the corresponding rate of the article code recorded therein,” the report pointed out.

The report said that even after 10 years of the development of the software, MCGM did not have its own personnel as database administrator for overall IT security and as custodian of data to ensure data integrity of such a critical system.

The report also added that the non-recovery of capitalised value and interest on account of redevelopment of properties by the estate department of MCGM resulted in loss of revenue of Rs.45.45 crore.

IANS 2012-12-21 22:52:10