The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had received criticism for having a Rs 2 cr per year contract for the management of its social media accounts. In recent developments, the civic authority has decided to discard its current social media management contract and nominate another agency through new tenders. Based on the report by the Times of India, the authority has commenced drawing a new tender.
Even though its revenue has been tapering, without initiating tenders, it had given S2 Infotech a contract of Rs 5.9cr to handle its 34 Twitter handles from July 2019 to July 2022, highlighted the report. Many corporators and MLAs had biffed the authority for incurring expenditure worth Rs 2 cr on Twitter. They claimed that technical analysis wasn’t undertaken to understand the reach and impact of the social media handles, some of which aren’t verified.
Prabhat Rahangdale, the deputy municipal commissioner (disaster management) in a written reply to Rais Shaikh, according to the narrative, stated that the three-year contract was accorded under section 72 (3) of Mumbai Municipal Corporation (MMC) Act over the state-run Maharashtra IT Corporation to an empanelled agency. The consultant was designated by the IT Department to assess the present work scope and public relations department. According to this and human resource needs, approximates were made for a yearly contract. Rahangdale added that upon a new contractor being assigned, the current one will be shut prior to the end of its duration. So far, the civic authority has remunerated Rs 2.85 cr to Maha IT Corporation for operation from July 2019 to February 2021, stated the account.
Although Mumbai Police was the first government agency to join Twitter in order to answer citizen’s issues, it has one Twitter account. However, the BMC set up 34 handles which not only augmented costs but also confusion, believes Shaikh, mentioned the narrative.
The report further elucidated that citizens believe that the number of unverified handles leads to confusion and is also a security problem since many fake handles have been made.
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