None of the annual audit reports since 1982 have been placed at the civic general body meetings and it was former municipal commissioner Ganesh Thakur who last year ordered the completion of the pending audit work.

For this a special cell was formed and it was given a specific time-frame within which the audit of nearly 100 civic departments was to be completed. The special cell was headed by Additional Municipal Commissioner R B Konde. Till June this year, the recovery has been Rs 6.87 crore. The officials, however, point out that some pending property tax arrears have been included in the total recovered amount which relatively appears large. The officials maintained that that there have been no objections of serious nature.

The special cell identified a total of 40,332 objections for the period 1982-83 to 1995-96. Of these, 16,404 have been cleared by the special cell which incidentally has now been closed. The work of completing the remaining work has been allotted to the audit department which is headed by chief auditor Dilip Pawar who joined recently. Earlier, the PCMC chief accountant was given additional charge of the audit department.

The formation of the special cell however has helped in the audit work getting streamlined as most departments were given the necessary guidelines.