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PMC stops payment of staff from merged villages, Ajit Pawar orders probe
Following allegations of bogus recruitment, PMC has stopped paying salaries of employees working at the 23 merged villages since the past six months amid probe ordered by deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar
PUNE: Following allegations of bogus recruitment, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has stopped paying salaries of employees working at the 23 merged villages since the past six months amid a probe launched by the state government.
The Pune zilla parishad (ZP) had submitted a list of 926 employees working in these merged villages before withdrawing the list. Later, it submitted a list of 1,130 employees, raising suspicion that some of the recruitments were done post government decision to merge villages into PMC in December 2013.
On Saturday, deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar had said he has ordered to scrutinise all the recruitments made post the merger decision. “I have received feedback from the zilla parishad chief executive officer (CEO) that some recruitments were done post-merger decision in anticipation that they will henceforth be employees of PMC. I have ordered probe into this,” said Pawar.
There were allegations made that as the villages were set to be merged in the PMC, additional people were recruited for various posts under political pressure during the transition period.
Some elected members Siddharth Dhende, Baburao Chandere, Amol Balwadkar and Deepali Dhumal raised the issue of recruitment in these villages at the eleventh hour and demanded inquiry at PMC level. However, some members are in favour of restoring salaries to the staff since six months have passed.
The elected members from PMC said that it is true that the payments should not be stopped for long period but at the same time PMC need to take care of bogus employees.
PMC estate department head Rajendra Muthe said, “Zilla parishad had given the list and later withdraws it. All of a sudden, employees number increased and even the second list was withdrawn. If PMC did not get details, it is getting difficult to do payments.”
