The move came hours after Maratha actor and theatre personality Prashant Damle complained of the high rent.
Barely two hours after popular Maratha actor and theatre personality Prashant Damle lamented the “exorbitant rent” charged at auditoriums in the industrial city, the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation scrapped the hike that had come into effect from January last year.
The PCMC was forced to backtrack as Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, responding to the actor’s speech, too described the hike in rent of auditoriums as “incorrect.”
“PCMC runs five auditoriums at different places in the city. The administration had hike the rent for letting out auditoriums for dramas and plays last year. During the 100th Marathi Natya Sammelan, the Chief Minister has directed that the rent hike auditoriums should be withdrawn and it should be levied as done earlier. We are therefore withdrawing the hike,” Municipal Commissioner Shekhar Singh said in a press release.
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After it hiked the rents and other charges related to the auditorium, there were protests from artistes and their organisations. The rent was hiked from 4 to 6 fold. The other charges like electricity had also gone up.
During the inauguration of the 100th Marathi Natya Sammelan at Chinchwad, Damle pointed out how injustice had been done to the artistes and how Marathi dramas and plays had taken the hit.
Listing out grievances of the artistes, Damle said, “There is need to improve the infrastructure at the auditoriums. Appropriate people should be appointed to maintain and run the auditoriums. Constructing auditoriums is not a difficult task but maintaining them certainly is. The rent charged at auditoriums is also an important subject. During Covid time, the then Chief Minister had reduced the fees charged for renting out auditoriums.”
Damle said at the auditoriums in Pimpri-Chinchwad, even for having a meal Rs 500 rent is charged. “Electricity is also a problem….The Government should provide help to us by creating a congenial atmosphere for the artistes. It should help reduce the rents and electricity charges,” he said.
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In response, the Chief Minister promised to resolve the issue. “The rent hike was incorrect. I will take up the issue with the PCMC commissioner,” he said. Two hours later, the PCMC withdrew the hike — something which it has refused to do for one year.
In his speech, Damle said politicians keep acting 365 days a year while actors perform on stage only for three hours.
“We artistes perform on stage for three actors. But those present on the dias here keep acting 365 days 24 X 7 a year. I salute their work…Since I have been given the presidentship of the sammelan suddenly, I feel like having become the chief minister…,” Damle said.
Among those present at the inauguration and on the dias were Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, NCP national president Sharad Pawar and Industry Minister Uday Samant.
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.
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