Pune civic officers condemn attack on water department head

Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) officers staged an agitation and halted work to demand a legal department special cell to address incidents of abuse and threats from political workers. The protest was in response to recent attacks on PMC staff during the inauguration of a water tank. The officers are calling for action against political leaders involved in such attacks and for the legal department to file police complaints in such cases.

With reports of civic officials being manhandled, abused or threatened by political workers, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) officers on Monday staged an agitation and halted work for some time.

The PMC engineering department staged an agitation in front of the civic body headquarters and demanded action against political leaders involved in such attacks. (REPRESENTATIVE PHOTO)

The protesting civic staff demanded the municipal commissioner to form a legal department special cell to address such issues.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers had obstructed PMC staff from their duty during the inauguration of a water tank at Shivajinagar assembly constituency last week.

Congress MLA Ravinda Dhangekar had verbally abused PMC water department head Nandkishor Jagtap. As the video clip of his attack went viral, PMC administration took cognisance of the issue and held protest.

The PMC engineering department staged an agitation in front of the civic body headquarters and demanded action against political leaders involved in such attacks.

Their letter to the municipal commissioner Vikram Kumar states, “It has become a common practice to target municipal officers, who have become soft target for political leaders. If any individual officer files a police complaint for such incident, the staff is harassed more. Considering this, the legal department should file police complaints in such cases”.

The municipal officers demanded that instead of department heads, the municipal secretary should make arrangements for inauguration of civic projects.

The PMC officials Prashant Waghmare, Aniruddha Pawaskar, Srinivas Kandul, Mandhav Jagtap, Nandkishor Jagtap, Sunil Kadam and Sanjay Pol were present at the protest.