Know Your BMC

BMC at a glance

BrihanMumbai Municipal corporation is the governing civic body of Mumbai, established under the Bombay municipal corporation act 1888. BMC is India’s richest municipal corporation; its annual budget exceeds that some of India’s smaller states.

Current City officials of BMC

Mayor – The BMC Head

BMC is headed by a mayor, who is an IAS officer. Elections are conducted after every five years for the Corporators. The mayor is elected from the party who gets the majority. Mayor is elected from among the Corporators and serves a term of 2-1/2 year. Mayor is the one who chairs the general body meeting of all Corporators and is the ceremonial head of municipal corporation.

BMC Corporators and their duties

Members are elected every five years from each ward, and are known as councillors or Corporators. Mumbai has total 227 seats and thus have 227 Corporators.

Corporators are the link between the public and the civic body. They have control over all the financial and budgetary matters, that is, approval of contracts, allocation of expenditure, determining taxes and all the other financial matters. They are responsible for the implementation of policies. The work is divided between various committees.

The BMC Commissioner

Commissioner is appointed by the state government, is an official of IAS rank of additional secretary. He ensures the smooth functioning of BMC and implements the decisions of the corporation. A commissioner can approve proposals having a financial outlay of Rs 20 lakh. If it exceeds 20 lakhs, then it is forwarded to the standing committee.

The need of local Corporators

For issues like, flooding, water logging, garbage maintenance, poor roadways and for the personal issues like birth/ death certificate, a local Corporator is needed.

Committees in BMC

Committees are responsible for monitoring specific tasks. They are comprised of Corporators. Nine are the statutory bodies whose orders are binding on the civic body.

The special committees

Recent addition to the committees

Tree authority- This is headed by the commissioner, unlike the others and it includes general public.

It is responsible for department of garden, saving the trees and mangroves destruction.

How work is done in BMC

• Citizens take the proposal to the Corporators of their respective wards
• The Corporator keeps the proposal in front of the ward committee, which at local level monitors the civic functions and includes officials and Corporators
• If the cost of proposal exceeds Rs 5 lakh, the ward committee forwards it to the commissioner
• Commissioner can deal with the financial amount of Rs 20 lakh, but if the proposal is more than that, it is forwarded to the standing committee, which is responsible for all the proposals which has financial commitment
• The proposal gets examined by the standing committee and later gets to the final authority of 227- member House

The major departments of BMC

7. Public health department

IN charge- executive health officer, and medical officer of health (MOH) – at ward level

10. Garden department

IN charge- superintendent and garden supervisor at ward level

• Maintaining the gardens

The problems with respective departments