Objective of City Financial Management Council:

The City Financial Management Council is a step by PCMA towards promoting financial transparency with fellow citizens and bring in the expertise

and views of the residents in the financial control and planning process. The objective of the Council may be defined as:

1. 1. The Council will work with PCMA to contribute to financial decision-making process.
2. 2. The Council will oversee the integrity and transparency of Financial Reporting.
3. 3. The Council will provide their feedback on effectiveness and maintenance of financial controls.

Achievements / Activities so far:

The CFMC is the newest Council in PCMA’s family having been formed in December 2017. However, during this short duration of three months, the Council along with PCMA has taken the following two key decisions which has resulted in savings in significant savings in CGC for the residents of Palava:

• 1. Moving out of tripartite agreement with Kotak on Smart Cards in order to discontinue the wallet services resulting in a savings of ~Rs 1cr over a period of 5 years and this in turn leading to the reduction in the cost of card by ~60% thereby saving an additional amount of Rs 32 lakhs.
• 2. Monetising the PCMA, Casa Rio office by shifting the PCMA office operations activities to other locations and making the space available to be leased out thereby generating revenues for the city. This has resulted in cost saving of ~Rs 15.0 lacs per annum in addition to the creating revenue potential for the city.

Way forward / Planned Initiatives:

In the first quarter of financial year 2018-2019, PCMA and Council has planned for the following key activities:

• 1. PCMA along with the Council will be publishing the audited CGC financial statement for FY2017-2018 and the Annual Budget for FY2018-2019 on mypalava portal.
• 2. In our constant endeavour to maintain transparency in financial accounting process, we will be publishing all the major contracts awarded to various facets for city administration on mypalava portal.

Post conclusion of these two activities, PCMA and CFMC Council then will jointly decide on the activities to be planned for the rest of the year which will include regular reviews of financial numbers, reviews of city all the assets and services, and working on revenue-maximization strategies amongst various other activities. The Council will keep the residents of Palava appraised of all the activities undertaken by them and the achievements / results of such activities.

Process of formation and Eligibility criteria:

Nominations were invited from the residents who would want to work with PCMA to contribute to the financial decision-making process, to oversee the integrity and transparency of financial reporting, including accounting policies and give feedback on the effectiveness and maintenance of controls and systems.

In order for the citizens to join the council and effectively participate in the financial governance, the following qualities / qualifications were made essential:

• The member must have sound knowledge of financial management and reporting
• The member should have relevant work experience / exposure in the area of financial management.
• The member must be willing to actively engage with PCMA and other Committee members as the Council strives to fulfil its mission.

Once all the nominations were received, the first stage of screening was conducted internally by PCMA management team who evaluated the nominations and shortlisted the candidates who deemed best fit for the Council basis the eligibility criteria as defined above. In next step, PCMA management conducted a round of discussion with the shortlisted candidates to evaluate, assess and understand the ability and keenness of the citizens who were shortlisted. Post this round of discussion, the members who were best fit for Council were inducted as the members of the Council.