Pune has decided to honour its war heroes in an unusual way. Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Ltd (PMPML) will give free life-time passes to all gallantary award winners living in the city. Currently,there are 10 gallantry award winners living in the city and all these war veterans might get the passes at their doorsteps. Divisional Commissioner Dilip Band,also PMPML chairman and managing director,said the decision has already been taken and the process to issue the passes started on August 15. A couple of gallantry award winners have submitted their citations and they would soon get their life-time passes. Band said this was best the PMPML could do to honour our heroes who put everything at stake for the country. He said it would be PMPMLs moment of pride to have gallantry awardees travel by its buses. PMPML pass section in-charge Satish Kokare said once they get a list of all the 10 gallantry award winners,his men would personally go to their residence to collect the mandatory citation and photos required for issuing the passes. In fact,I had personally gone to the residence of one of the gallantry award winners to get his citation. We would soon be issuing him the pass, he said. Kokare said the passes would be either delivered at their homes or would be handed over at a function which will be decided by the chairman and managing director. Major Uday Sathe (retd),who had taken the initiative in convincing the PMPML to honour the war heroes,said,I had put forth the proposal before Band. He was not aware that there were only 10 gallantry awardees living in Pune, he said. Major Sathe said,The PMPML gesture,though small,is a welcome one. Brig Diwakar Paranjape,who was awarded with Vir Chakra in 1965,said the PMPML move is a belated one. In states like Punjab,the government holds gallantry award winners in a high esteem. They are given land and also Rs 8,500 per month. But in our state,we get nothing, he said.
