Termites feast on civic documents in Mumbai

Vasant Jadhav, 64, a gardener with the municipal corporation, got his provident fund from Central Provident Fund office after retirement in 2008. But, he is yet to get his gratuity and pension from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

Reason: The Andheri ward cannot calculate his pension and gratuity because his official records have been destroyed by white ants.

The Andheri ward office is not the only one that is facing this menace.

White ants have taken over the record rooms and destroyed crucial documents at Chembur and Ghatkopar ward offices and also the estate department and property tax department offices.

It is very difficult to check property records of the pre-1980 era because the papers are tattered. Many lease and ownership records turn to powder at mere touch.

The estate and property tax departments have lost many records. The property-tax department is in possession of approximately 50 lakh documents, including tabulated ward reports, property assessment books, inspection books, and complaints register.

The estate department, at Crawford Market, has double the number of documents.

The white termites have also eaten away Chembur ward office’s records of its own works on roads and storm water drains since 1991. Even the civic auditor could not prepare the ward’s balance sheets as there are hardly any documents left intact.

The civic standing committee has agreed to waive of the expenses on some of the ward’s works.

The civic pesticide department maintains that they have been regularly spraying pesticide at all ward offices. “If any office informs us about the menace, we do carry out the exercise,” said Arun Bhamre, pesticide officer.

Corporator Vinod Shekhar said: “I have asked the BMC to spray pesticide at various offices and in some of the heritage houses in the city to save them from termites.”

In 2008, the BMC had decided to create a central depository system for the estates departments and had even identified an unoccupied civic building of 1.5 lakh sq ft at Kandivili.

The Document Management System, a Rs56-lakh project, was to be carried out by the Science and Technology Parkm which would implement the system for the assessment and collection department and the estate department. A demo project was carried out with 500 documents from the assessment and collection department of R (South) ward and 6,800 files were digitalised.

The project is yet to take off.