E-Paper
A year of PMC under administrator’s rule
During the past year, PMC has taken various decisions although the civic body has been short of taking big decisions such as High Capacity Mass Transit Route (HCMTR) project
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) will complete a year on Wednesday (March 15) without any elected members serving the civic body. It has never happened before for the administrator to hold onto power for this long without knowing when elections will take place.
As the State Election Commission (SEC) has not been able to conduct civic polls in time, the state government issued a notification to appoint an administrator for Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad and other municipal corporations whose tenure got over on March 14, 2022.
During the past year, PMC has taken various decisions although the civic body has been short of taking big decisions such as High Capacity Mass Transit Route (HCMTR) project.
Among the projects that await approval is pay-and-park, detailed project report for Metro expansion routes etc. The pay-and-park plan was approved in 2018 though it could not be implemented due to opposition from elected representatives who feared backlash from residents.
On one hand, PMC, under municipal commissioner Vikarm Kumar’s leadership was able to revise the width of the proposed Katraj-Kondhwa road from 84 metres to 50 metres. The civic body now awaits funding approval from the state government.
On the other hand, it has earned the ire of people after its tax department served notices to residents even as the civic body had earlier asked residents not to pay it till the next order. PMC last year had sent text messages to over 60,000 residents to clear dues. Kumar had to issue a clarification that its implementation will not happen till further orders.
For PMC, constructing the Balbharatri-Paud road has turned out to be among the most vexing issue amid opposition from residents and activists. The civic body, however, has now sent the proposal to the estimate committee of PMC after which bids will be invited.
For Punekars, the experience has not been very good as many people complained that in absence of corporators, it has become difficult to meet officials for various works.
All political parties’ elected officials, including those from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Congress, and Shiv Sena, are dissatisfied with the lack of local elections and the absence of elected officials’ roles in the civic body.
Kumar said, “We initiated work on various projects. The 24x7 water project was challenging, but we established a network. We also started work on riverfront development work .”
NCP city unit president Prashant Jagtap said, “It is against the principle of democracy to keep elected members away from local bodies. The state government has intentionally delayed the elections as the ruling BJP did not have the confidence that their party will come back to power. The Kasba Peth bypolls have given a clear mandate that people are not happy with BJP.”
Jagtap claims that because of election delays, civic projects are put off and people are inconvenienced. Even the administration does not make choices about policy. “It is only reasonable that the administration would never choose a course of action that would cause a controversy. Political leadership is necessary for making policy decisions,” he said.
BJP city unit president Jagdish Mulik said, “It is obvious that there is a need for political leadership and a general body for citizen’s participation. In a municipal corporation, the presence of the general body facilitates swift decision-making.”
Mulik said, “Though oppositions are blaming BJP for delaying elections, the polls are delayed due to court cases.”
