Social organisations shut shop in Mumbai

The municipal corporation’s lackadaisical attitude towards providing financial aid to social organisations has led many of them to close down in the last three years.

In the last three years, 37 social organisations have shut shop because of financial crunch.

Every year, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) makes a provision of Rs2 crore for social organisations. But, since 2008, the provision has been lying unused.

And, this year, the civic administration earmarked only Rs75 lakh as provision for social organisations.

In 2008, the municipal body had received 74 applications from various organisations seeking financial aid. But, the applications were not even considered.

This year, the civic grants committee has decided to distribute the money among these social organisations.

When the accounts department checked the antecedents and addresses of each of the organisations that had filed applications, the officials found that 37 of the 74 organisations had shut down because of lack of finances.

“Such organisations do not have any source of income, besides the municipal corporation’s grant, to do social work in their respective areas. As these organisations did not receive any grant [from the BMC], they had to close down,” said M Desai, a resident of Delisle Road, who also runs a social organisation.

“The BMC has no interest in doing charity or public work, it only wants to make profits. The ruling parties, the Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party, do not keep control on the administration and it listens only to the corporators. These organisations have closed down because of this attitude,” claimed Rajhans Singh, Opposition leader.