Having flagged the issue of alleged corruption and mis-governance in the poll-bound Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Maharashtra’s former minister and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray on Tuesday once again upped the ante against the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government over the “terrible condition” of the BMC-run hospitals in the metropolis and “zero” support to them from the “illegal regime” in the state.

Nearly two months after he led a massive morcha to the BMC over the alleged financial irregularities in the projects undertaken by the country’s biggest civic body, Aaditya took to twitter to accuse Eknath Shinde as the “Contractor Mantri (CM)” and the state government as “looters of Mumbai” and express his serious displeasure over the manner in which the civic services were being run in Mumbai.

Putting out a series of tweets on the sorry state of affairs in the various BMC-run hospitals in the city, Aaditya said: “It is infuriating to see the way this illegal Mindhe- BJP regime- looters of Mumbai, are running the civic services in Mumbai. The BMC administration, directly run from the Contractor Mantri (CM) office for a year, has only been seen serving builders- contractors, but not people”.

“I’ve been getting feedback from doctors and citizens about BMC hospitals in Mumbai, currently being totally helpless to serve citizens, as never before due to absolute lack of support from BMC administration and CPD. Tweeting it, since the MC only responds when in public domain,” the Sena (UBT) leader said.

Citing the example of Mumbai’s leading BMC-run Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, Aaditya said:  “Take for example, Sion hospital. While the doctors and staff are working tirelessly to support the services, I have been told that the hospital is running out of basic medicines, medical gloves and X-Ray film stock. Yet, the BMC administration hasn’t supported it fully yet”.“As per the reports, BMC hospitals have been told to purchase medicines upto ?20 lakh, which earlier was always done by the Central Purchase Dept (now busy with street furniture scam of the CM). I would like to know whether hospitals have been able to successfully purchase medicine,” he said.

Aaditya demanded to know from the BMC administration on “whether these hospitals have really been told now to buy malaria and dengue kits at the local levels and whether Sion hospital had to take 1 lakh bottles of IV fluids through donation and not the CPD?” He also wanted to know if similar things were happening in other BMC-run hospitals in the city.

Alluding to the financial and administrative mismanagement, the Shiv Sena (UBT) leader alleged that “even though the contracts of medical oxygen suppliers have expired in some BMC hospitals, new tenders haven’t been floated yet and the old one has been extended”.  Aaditya wanted to know if similar things were happening in other BMC-run hospitals as well.

On the issue of vacancies of  doctors’ posts and lack of promotions in the BMC-run hospitals, he said: “It is also seen that the promotions of doctors have been stalled for a year now, while many posts also lie vacant in many BMC hospitals. When will the promotion happen and when will posts be filled?”.

Aaditya’s comments should be seen in the context of the fact that the BMC is considered the richest Municipal Corporation in Asia. Its budgetary outlay for  2023-24 is a whopping Rs 52,619 crore.

It may be recalled that in March this year,  the Accountant General (Audit)-I Maharashtra had brought to the fore  several lapses and irregularities in the special audit of 76 identified works worth Rs 12,023 crore expenditure incurred by the BMC. The Accountant General (Audit)-I Maharashtra had also pulled up the BMC for its failure to produce records for an expenditure of Rs 3,538 crore incurred on the Covid-19 management between early 2020 and October 31, 2022.  

Currently, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is investigating the Covid-19 scam related money laundering case. The ED had conducted a series of raids in various locations across Mumbai, including the premises of those close to him and his party leader Aaditya Thackeray in connection with an alleged Covid 19-scam related money laundering case.

Following the raids, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP and spokesperson Sanjay Raut had charged that the family members of Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde benefitted from a scam of several crores of rupees in his home district of Thane.

Among other things, Raut had alleged that Shinde’s family members were involved in were related purported fake bills which were issued by certain companies for Covid-19 facilities at Thane and the neighbouring Kalyan-Dombivali towns.

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