Special PMC cell to speed up pension-related work

Currently, 444 cases related to retirement are pending before PMC and the administration has now expedited the process

The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has started a special cell for handling pension-related work after allegations were levelled against the department officials for demanding bribes.

PMC has started a special cell for handling pension-related work after allegations were levelled against the department officials for demanding bribes. (REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE)

Vikram Kumar, PMC commissioner, said, “A retired PMC employee must get his gratuity and pending arrears against leaves in the retiring month itself and must get the pension sum from the second month of his retirement. Once he retires, the administrative work begins. The new cell would look into aspects like when the employee got registered, what promotions he received, his service book verification etc.”

“The cell would expedite the work and ensure that the file is processed quickly to provide relief to the retiring employee,” he said.

Currently, 444 cases related to retirement are pending before PMC and the administration has now expedited the process.

According to the laid down guidelines, the paperwork of a retiring employee has to be completed a year before a person retires, but on-ground experience has been that it is usually taken up two or three months before retirement.

The files are usually blocked at the bill clerk levels who demand bribes from the retired employees leading to their harassment.

Manohar Shinde, a retired employee, said, “It has been the experience that the bill clerks had been keeping the files on hold for months together for clearing them. Now the announcement of a special cell is aimed at making it easy for PMC employees to get their files processed.”

The officials from Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on June 30 caught an employee of PMC accepting a bribe of ₹1 lakh to help process the encashment of earned leave of retired staff.

The accused, identified as Pravin Dattatray Pasalkar (50), a class IV employee of PMC, has been booked under relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act. An FIR has been registered at Shivajinagar police station.