Vipin Sharma takes charge as new commissioner of Thane Municipal Corporation

Dr. Sharma replaced Vijay Singhal, who had held the job for the barely three months.

Dr. Vipin Sharma took charge as the new commissioner of Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) on Wednesday morning and assured that the raging coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak would be reined in the next few days.

Dr. Vipin Sharma’s major challenge would be to flatten the Covid-19 curve in the areas under Thane civic body’s jurisdiction and also to tackle monsoon-related diseases. (Satyabrata Tripathy/HT Photo)

Dr. Sharma replaced Vijay Singhal, who had held the job for the barely three months.

The new civic chief said that the focus would be identifying and bridging the gaps and strengthening the system to combat the pandemic.

He held a review meeting with the civic officials on Wednesday morning.

“I have met all officials and medical teams that have been deployed to combat the viral outbreak. We will focus on areas, where the strengthening of measures is required. The gaps will be identified and filled soon. My predecessor’s good work will be carried forward. It will take another two-three days to come up with an action plan. Our primary focus is to create awareness among the public to maintain social distancing norms and comply with basic hygiene,” Dr. Sharma said after the review meeting.

Dr. Sharma’s name as the new TMC chief was announced by the Maharashtra government late at night on Tuesday.

He is a 2005 Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, who had served as the additional civic commissioner in Pune and the district collector of Latur.

His major challenge would be to flatten the Covid-19 curve in the areas under Thane civic body’s jurisdiction and also to tackle monsoon-related diseases.

Narayan Pawar, a corporator from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has demanded that the state government should bring back ex-TMC commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal amid the pandemic.

“He knows Thane well and had successfully undertaken many projects during his five-year tenure. This is not the time to experiment and try out new permutations and combinations. The new civic chief may be good, but he lacks experience as far as Thane is concerned,” Pawar said.

While Niranjan Dawkhare, president, Thane BJP, alleged that Singhal was transferred as the TMC chief in a bid to gloss over the failures of two ministers, who belong to Thane.