Rising cases in MMR: Four civic chiefs shunted out

In a bid to contain the spread of Covid-19, the state government has appointed new district chiefs and civic commissioners. Four of them selected for posts in the

In a bid to contain the spread of Covid-19, the state government has appointed new district chiefs and civic commissioners. Four of them selected for posts in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) are Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers with medical degrees.

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The state transferred commissioners of Thane. Mira-Bhayander, Ulhasnagar, and Navi Mumbai municipal corporations on Tuesday and appointed Dr Vipin Sharma, Dr Vijay Rathod, Dr Mantada Raja Dayanidhi, and Abhijit Bangar to the posts, respectively. Sharma (2005 IAS batch), Rathod and Dayanidhi (both 2014 batch IAS) hold MBBS degrees.

On June 19, the government had appointed Pankaj Ashiya (2016 batch IAS), an MBBS graduate, as commissioner of Bhiwandi-Nizampur Municipal Corporation.

Late on Tuesday, Vijay Singhal was shunted out from the post of Thane civic commissioner three months after his appointment. Sharma, who was on foreign training since September 2019, will now take up the post.

Sharma had previously served as additional civic commissioner in Pune and collector of Latur.

Ashiya has been credited with playing a key role in controlling the cases in Malegaon in Nashik and then in Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) over the past three months. He was the special monitoring officer for Covid-19 in Malegaon and will now take over charge as Bhiwandi civic chief from Pravin Ashtikar.

“My team could manage to bring the active cases of coronavirus in Malegaon from 500-600 to 60-70. In Thane also, I was assisting the commissioner for five wards which had the highest cases, in terms of tracking the contacts, improving health infrastructure. In Bhiwandi, I will study the present scenario and work towards reducing the spread of the infection,” said Ashiya.

“In any pandemic situation, the best way to control the spread is by following the guidelines set by the government. In Malegaon, we managed to involve locals and community leaders to spread awareness. The same shall be done in Bhiwandi,” he added.

While the cases in Mumbai have dropped drastically in the past few weeks, the count is still high compared to the rest of MMR, which is governed by eight other municipal corporations. On June 21, MMR accounted for 73.3% of the state’s Covid count, a slight decrease from 78.13% on April 21. During this period, the percentage of cases in Mumbai dropped to 50.34% from 66.13%. The case fatality rate in MMR has increased to 4.69% from 3.01% since May 22.

“We have brought IAS officers with medical degrees to lead municipal corporations that do not have robust health infrastructures like Mumbai or Navi Mumbai. We expect these officers with a medical background to be able to handle the pandemic situation properly. We don’t think the outgoing officers were not competent enough, but in the backdrop of gradual developments on the front of the pandemic, these officers will be in a better position to contain the spread,” said Sitaram Kunte, additional chief secretary, general administration department.

The state government recently also replaced the Jalgaon collector and Solapur municipal commissioner after the cases and death rate in the districts rose significantly. The pandemic-period changes began with the transfer of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner, Praveen Pardeshi, six weeks ago.

UMC gets new chief for second time during lockdown

Sameer Unhale, municipal commissioner of Ulhasnagar has been transferred, and Dayanidhi will take over the post. Unhale was made Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation (UMC) chief a month ago after Sudhakar Deshmukh was transferred. Till now, Ulhasnagar has recorded 1,125 positive cases and 36 deaths. Dayanidhi was the chief operating officer, Gondia zilla parishad, and had been posted in Ulhasnagar as part of the state government’s pandemic team.

According to an order released by Mantralaya on Tuesday, Dayanidhi has to take charge from Unhale at the earliest.

Santosh Rastogi, joint commissioner (crime), Mumbai Police has also been transferred as additional resident commissioner, Maharashtra Sadan, Delhi.

(With inputs from Ankita G Menon and Sajana Nambiar)