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Pune Municipal Corporation lacks transparency alleges former commissioner Mahesh Zagade
Mahesh Zagade, former PMC commissioner accused the current PMC commissioner Saurabh Rao of presenting an inappropriate budget
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is being portrayed as one of those civic bodies which gives special emphasis on transparency and e-governance, however, the truth of the matter is that it lacks the basic transparency, alleged Mahesh Zagade, former PMC commissioner.
He was speaking at a programme organised by city-based NGO Sajak Nagarik Manch on Sunday, where he accused the PMC of lacking in transparency and of presenting an inappropriate budget in the month of January.
Questioning PMC’s claims on transparency, Zagade said, “If PMC’s tall claims of being transparent were to be believed then why does the civic body refrain from uploading its budget on the official website of the administration. It is the deliberate attempt by the civic body to hide the specifications of the budget from the citizens.”
According to Zagade, if both the state and central governments upload the budget documents on the same day after presenting it in the respective houses, then PMC should also do the same, unless they have taken the citizens of Pune for granted.
Accusing the current PMC commissioner Saurabh Rao of presenting an inappropriate budget, Zagade said, “It is surprising that PMC commissioner starts his budget speech by mentioning about the schemes run by central and state governments. It is his responsibility to focus only on city-centric issues. Also, the budget presented by the PMC commissioner should look at curbing the problems from its roots, however, the budget at no point has any focus on finding solutions to the problems, instead is all about the tall promises followed by budgetary allocations.”
Acknowledging Zagade’s observations, Vivek Velankar, founder of NGO, Sajak Nagarik Manch said, “We are fortunate to have the opportunity to listen to the analysis of the PMC budget by the former PMC commissioner who has himself presented many budgets earlier.”
It is important for the citizens to know the intricacies of the budget and there could be no one better than Zagade himself in explaining the same, said Velankar.
