Mumbai: After a city-based NGO highlighted the lack of investigation in nearly 3000 missing files from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s Building Proposal (BP) department, the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Maharashtra has taken serious note of the issue.

“The CAG Maharashtra has taken cognizance of this serious matter and has ordered an inquiry into missing files from the BP department of the BMC,” said trustee of Watchdog Foundation Godfrey Pimenta.

“I have been asked to authenticate my complaint and I will do that on Monday,” Pimenta said, who has received a letter from the office of the Principal Accountant General.

The Free Press Journal had reported on January 17 that the NGO has raked up the long-standing issue of files allegedly going missing mysteriously from the BMC offices, severely hampering transparency and accountability within the civic body’s departments. Pimenta had written to the Chief Minister’s office highlighting the government’s failure to probe into the matter of missing files and alleged irregularities.

In 2013, at least 3,747 files went missing from the BMC’s BP department. In 2017, the corporation claimed to have traced or recreated most of the files that went missing mysteriously. Mumbai BJP president, MLA Ashish Shelar had then demanded police action into the issue and insisted that 7,000 files had gone missing from the department.

Speaking with the FPJ, the minister of information and technology Ashish Shelar recently said that he is going to follow up on the matter and have joint meetings to take updates on the BMC’s missing files matter.

The matter of the BMC’s BP department’s missing files came to the fore after Pimenta received an unexpected response to an RTI application seeking sanctions for an Andheri based Shakuntala Restaurant. He was informed by the BMC’s building proposal department that the file is ‘missing’.

“The information requested under the RTI pertains to the period before 2013 when a major scam emerged about missing files from the BMC’s BP department. The BMC had the opportunity to reconstruct all missing files by gathering information from property owners, the property tax department, the license department, and the fire brigade. However, the lack of willpower within the BMC has hindered the reconstruction of its own records,” Pimenta said.