BMC awaits McKinsey report on employee working norms

The global consultancy firm McKinsey has failed to meet the deadline to submit its report on working norms for the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) employees.

The firm was given a Rs 10.08 crore contract in August last year and was asked to submit the report in a year.

The study was aimed at increasing the workers' productivity and generating savings up to Rs 300 crore. Departments of Solid Waste Management (SWM) and Assessment and Collection, along with K-east (Andheri) and M-west (Chembur) wards, were given to the firm for case study.

McKinsey gave a presentation last week on how to increase the corporation's revenue from Rs 5,000 crore at present to Rs 12,500 crore. The firm said once the suggestions given are implemented there will be an increase of Rs 500 crore in octroi collections and Rs 150 crore in wealth tax collections.

The corporators, however, are wary of the way the firm is working. "McKinsey has not done the work which was assigned to it. The presentation did not have anything on the working norms for the employees," said Ravindra Pawar, corporator, Nationalist Congress Party.

"Rs 10.08 crore is a big amount. How can we allow so much money to be wasted? We do not know anything about the report. A letter and two reminders have been sent to the municipal commissioner, but till now we have not got any response," added Pawar.

A senior official of the corporation said, "It is difficult to understand how the corporation assigns tasks to these firms. It results in a huge waste of the corporation's money without getting anything concrete in return."

Earlier, the corporation had appointed a three-member committee in October 2001 to resolve some of the issues between the administration and the employees.

The committee was to fix the salary and the allowances and set the working norms while enhancing productivity. It submitted the report to the corporation in February 2004 but did not clarify working norms and asked the corporation to get it done through another consultancy.