Mumbai: BJP’s plan to provide tablet devices to all 237 corporators appears to have hit a procurement hurdle, with the civic administration finding it difficult to buy the devices through Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal.According to a BJP functionary, the tablets proposed to be purchased are of Chinese make. Since the particular Chinese-made tablets are reportedly not available for procurement through GeM, BMC may find it difficult to go ahead with the buy through the govt portal.BMC had in recent months decided to procure all of the civic body’s requirements through GeM, govt’s centralised public procurement platform. The portal is used by govt departments and public bodies to buy goods and services through an online system. The proposal to provide tablets to all 227 elected corporators plus 10 nominated corporators had drawn opposition from Shiv Sena (UBT), which had questioned the need for the civic body to incur expenditure on devices for elected representatives.BMC currently prints and distributes voluminous documents for the monthly civic House meetings as well as meetings of various statutory and special committees. These include standing committee, education committee, improvements committee, ward committees, works committee (city), works committee (suburbs), women and child welfare committee, law and revenue committee and health committee, among others.BMC official and BJP functionary Ganesh Khankar said, “Our aim to give tablets to all corporators was only to encourage paperless works. Our intent was good and it would have helped in ensuring that there’s no unnecessary wastage of paper. However, I have been informed that the administration may not be able to procure the devices via the GeM portal, in which case we will not be in favour of it as it was our govt that insisted on the use of the portal.” A dedicated application was proposed for the tablets, through which corporators would have been able to access the agenda and supporting documents.UBT leader and former mayor Kishori Pednekar said that she was opposed to the move since the beginning. “What is the point of providing tablets to all corporators when everyone today has a smart phone? Apart from it, we still prefer civic meeting agendas on paper so that later on it doesn’t give any scope to make any changes once the same is circulated,” she said.
