Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has now decided to go paperless, following in the footsteps of its state Legislative Assembly. As a first step towards achieving digitalisation of documents, the civic body will no longer deliver any of its committee meeting agendas, notices, as well as timetables to the homes of 227 corporators. These documents will now be sent by email to all corporators. While this is the first phase of going paperless, it will mean up to five to six per cent of the civic body’s work will go digital.
This is also being done in a bid to put to good use, the laptops and internet connections provided by the civic body to all corporators. Even though there is no count of how much money is utilised in printing and distributing these documents to the homes of corporators, the BMC estimates it will save several lakhs of rupees per month by going digital. However, this has not gone well with some corporators. Manoj Kotak, who is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader in the BMC, said, “BMC has been mulling this idea of going paperless for some years now, and I want to know why it has not happened still. Every once in a while, in a spurt of enthusiasm, the civic body announces this, but months later, business is carried out as usual. I welcome the idea, but I will applaud it only when implementation really happens.”
Similarly, Pravin Chheda, who is leader of the opposition in the BMC, said, “I am glad BMC is starting to go digital. But it must also do so with business in its wards. Plus there are corporators who are not as comfortable with technology. All of us are not from the young generation. So this idea must not affect the working of the standing committee and the general body meeting.”
Meanwhile, not all of the BMC transactions are going paperless, as files for signing from senior officials will still remain, and older documents will be computerised in some more time.
