This is an archive article published on August 23, 2021
As PCMC battles corruption taint, civic body chief says working on making system fully transparent
Last week, the arrests were made by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on charges of taking bribe from a civic contractor in connection with signing of an agreement and issuance of a work order.
The standing committee members, who had been inaccessible after the ACB raids, are reportedly in a state of tizzy. On Wednesday, only one of them turned up for the weekly meeting which was later adjourned for want of a quorum. (File Photo)
EVEN AS Opposition parties like the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Shiv Sena are demanding dissolution of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) after four of its employees along with its civic standing committee chief Nitin Landge were arrested on charges of taking bribe, the civic body administration has said it was working on improving the system and making it more transparent.
“Most of our functioning has become online. We are reducing the scope of offline transactions or functioning. As we increase online functioning, the scope of corruption will go on reducing,” Municipal Commissioner Rajesh Patil told The Indian Express on Monday.
Last week, the arrests were made by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on charges of taking bribe from a civic contractor in connection with signing of an agreement and issuance of a work order. The four employees — chief clerk Dnyaneshwar Pingle, clerk Vijay Chavariak, computer operator Rajendra Shinde and peon Arvind Kamble — have been suspended by the PCMC administration pending departmental enquiry. While Landge has been granted interim bail, the others have been remanded to judicial custody.
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Referring to the arrests, Patil said, “If anyone is demanding money from PCMC’s side, people should also not pay it. Instead, they should lodge complaints against such people.”
Former standing committee members alleged that money is demanded by the standing committee for signing agreements with contractors so that they could proceed with development work, which they had bagged through the tender process. Asked whether this process could become transparent, the PCMC chief said, “We are looking at it as to how to improve it…”
On allegations by contractors that PCMC officials demand money from them in lieu of clearing the bills, Patil said, “Whatever is within my jurisdiction, I will ensure that things improve and become transparent there. 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 could avoid such scenarios. It is a long process and will need some time.”
Regarding the demand from civic activists for setting up an office of the ACB in PCMC headquarters or somewhere in the city, Patil said, “I don’t think it will make a difference. There are some people who will find other ways to take money.”
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Civic activist Maruti Bhapar said he has written a letter to the PCMC commissioner, urging him to get an ACB office set up either in PCMC headquarters or somewhere close to it in the city. “The ACB office will serve as a deterrent. If it is not possible to set up an ACB office in PCMC headquarters, then it should be set up close to it so that people can get easy access to anti-graft officials. This will certainly serve as a deterrent,” he said.
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Even as last week’s incident is being cited as first in the history of PCMC where the “most powerful” civic committee’s chairman has been caught taking bribe, officials said in 2017, personal secretary of then PCMC commissioner Dinesh Waghmare was caught red-handed while taking Rs 12 lakh as bribe in the parking lot of PCMC headquarters.
Meanwhile, NCP leaders including MLA Anna Bansode and former legislator Vilas Lande met party chief Sharad Pawar on Sunday and apprised him “of the situation in PCMC” following the arrest of the 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 graft in PCMC as well as other civic issues. Our party has decided to hold a meeting in the regard in the city in the next 15 days,” said Bansode.
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
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