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60 officials claim vehicle allowance, but still use PMC cars: survey
Additional municipal commissioner had ordered survey to check PMC officials claim four-wheeler allowance and using vehicles provided by the civic body
PUNE The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) claims 60 Class-I officials are currently claiming a four-wheeler allowance, but are still using vehicles provided by the civic body.
Based on complaints received by the then additional municipal commissioner, Rubal Agarwal, the PMC vehicle depot conducted a survey and, on Tuesday, sent a list to the chief accountant for further action.
Agarwal, in her capacity as additional municipal commissioner, before she recently got transferred, had ordered the vehicle department to scrutinise records to establish the use of official vehicles.
Hitendre Kurane, superintendent, PMC vehicle depot, said, “As per the order, we have 60 officials who are using PMC four-wheelers for official visits, as per PMC Motor vehicle policy-2016. However, these 60 officials are also claiming a four-wheeler allowance.”
The additional commissioner, in her order, had asked the chief accountant to recover the travelling allowance from salaries of officials guilty of claiming both benefits.
A senior official of the account’s department, speaking anonymously, said, “We cannot reveal the names of officials, but we will recover the allowances from their salaries. Now, we are calculating the time period and the amount.”
There are 170 Class-I officials, including the commissioner, additional commissioners, zonal commissioners, heads of department (HoDs), superintendent engineers, assistant municipal commissioners, deputy commissioners, and assistant medical officers.
Executive engineers are eligible to use four-wheelers only for field visits, but they have to take permission from an additional commissioner.
The corporation pays ₹3,150 per month as a four-wheeler allowance to executive officers, and ₹4,200 per month for posts above the level of an executive officer.
