Financial irregularities found in bookings at KMC community hall

Kolkata: Irregularities have surfaced over booking of a community hall—maintained by Kolkata Municipal Corporation—at Kalighat in South Kolkata.

In a number of cases, the booking money has not been deposited to the exchequer of Borough IX under which the hall is located despite being booked upto December 2023.

It has been found that the booking register of the community hall—Jai Hind Bhawan— located in ward 73 do not match with the booking record of the Borough IX office. "We have lodged a complaint with the Kalighat police station,"Debalina Biswas, chairman of Borough Committee IX, said.

According to sources, Asit Saha, a contractual staff of KMC, has been handling the booking of the community hall. He would encourage the customers to pay in cash rather than draft/cheque.

The hall had started functioning from March 4 in 2015.

"I had booked the hall on February 2 for a ceremony to be held on June 28. I had paid Rs 9000 in cash against which I was given a receipt. A few days back, Saha called me and urged me that when I receive a call from the concerned borough office I would tell that I have not done my booking. He promised to refund my booking money. But, when I tried to get back to him, I received no response," said a customer.

It has also been found during inquiry that some of the customers have been given fake receipts. As soon as the matter came to the knowledge of local councillor Kajari Banerjee, she took up the matter with the borough office and a police complaint was lodged.

Saha had taken leave for a few days but is presently untraced.