Journalism of Courage
Advertisement
Premium

After arrests over graft, PCMC says it is working towards greater transparency

Last week, the Anti-Corruption Bureau had arrested the head of the Standing Committee and four employees of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation on charges of taking bribes.

PCMC, PCMC news, indian expressThe property tax department of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has sealed as many as 153 properties, including 40 residential flats, for defaulting on tax payments for over a year.(File Photo)

Even as Opposition parties like the NCP and the Shiv Sena have been demanding the dissolution of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) after four civic employees and Standing Committee chief Nitin Landge were arrested on charges of taking bribe, the PCMC administration Monday said it was working on making the system better and more transparent.

“Most of our functioning is now online. We are reducing the scope of offline transactions. As we increase digitisation, the scope of corruption will also reduce,” Municipal Commissioner Rajesh Patil told The Indian Express.

Last week, the Anti-Corruption Bureau arrested Landge, chief clerk Dnyaneshwar Pingle, clerk Vijay Chavariak, computer operator Rajendra Shinde and peon Arvind Kamble for allegedly taking bribe from a civic contractor to sign an agreement and issue a work order. All five are in ACB custody. The PCMC administration has suspended the employees pending a departmental inquiry.

“If anyone in PCMC is demanding money, people should not pay it. Instead, they should lodge complaints against such individuals,” Patil said.

Former members of the Standing Committee allege that the Committee demands money for signing agreements with contractors so that the contractor can proceed with the development work he had bagged through the tender process. Asked whether this process can be made more transparent, the PCMC chief said, “We are looking at how it can be improved”.

Contractors also allege that PCMC officials seek money for clearing bills. Patil has promised to look into the matter and improve things within his jurisdiction. “However, there are certain rules regarding the Standing Committee which need to be looked at seriously so that the system becomes more transparent and we can avoid such scenarios. It is a long process and will take time.”

Meanwhile, NCP leaders like MLA Anna Bansode and former MLA Vilas Lande met party chief Sharad Pawar Sunday and apprised him of the situation in PCMC following the arrest of five employees. Pawar has reportedly assured them that he will take up the issue with Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. “We discussed the latest issue of bribery in PCMC as well as other civic issues. Our party has decided to hold a meeting in the city in the next 15 days,” Bansode said.

Story continues below this ad

Civic activists have been demanding to set up an office of the Anti-Corruption Bureau at the PCMC headquarters or in the city. Activist Maruti Bhapar has written to the PCMC Commissioner on the matter. “If it is not possible to set up an ACB office in PCMC headquarters, it should be set up close to the PCMC headquarters so that people can get easy access to ACB officials. This will certainly serve as a deterrent,” he said.

But the Municipal Commissioner disagreed. “I don’t think it will make a difference. There are some people who will find other ways to take money,” he said.

Officials said in 2017 the personal secretary of the then PCMC commissioner Dinesh Waghmare was caught red-handed while taking a bribe of Rs 12 lakh. Last week’s incident is being cited as the first one in the corporation’s history in which the most powerful civic committee’s head has been caught taking a bribe.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


Click here to join Express Pune WhatsApp channel and get a curated list of our stories
Tags:
  • PCMC Pimpri Chinchwad Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation
Edition
Install the Express App for
a better experience
Featured
Trending Topics
News
Multimedia
Follow Us
C Raja Mohan writesOn its 80th birthday, and after Trump, a question: Whose UN is it anyway?
X