Pimpri-Chinchwad Diary : Deadline to raze Illegal structures nears

The first all women journalists’ association has been formed in Pune. Seema Shaikh of “Maharashtra Times” has been elected as the president of the newly-formed association called Pimpri-Chinchwad Mahila Patrakar Sangh. Sayli Kulkarni of “Sakhi Mazi Sobti” will be the working president of the association. Nisha Patil of “My Pimpri-Chinchwad.com” and Sangeeta Tarde of “Lokmat” will be the vice-presidents. Manisha Joshi of “Prabhat” will be the treasurer. The executive committee members include Sangeeta Kamble (Sakal),Archana Dahiwal (DNA),Ashwini Sambrekar (Aaj Ka Anand),Vijeta Gavas (Pudhari),Smita Joshi (My Pimpri-Chinchwad Antarang) and Rajani Pansare (Punyanagari). Shaikh said the association has been formed to empower women journalists and take up various problems faced by them. Every year,a new committee will be formed.

Local BJP leaders on sticky wicket

The Pimpri-Chinchwad BJP unit which is smarting from its pathetic performance in the recently concluded civic elections will have to do a lot of explaining. Top state leaders including its pradesh chief Sudhir Mungunttiwar are likely to visit the industrial town on Tuesday. Local BJP leaders said the visit follows complaints made by them to the state leaders about the way the civic elections were handled by the party’s office-bearers in town. The local leaders conveyed their resentment about the style of functioning of local unit chief Eknath Pawar under whose leadership the party managed just three seats in the PCMC elections. Pawar on his part has blamed the problems relating to seat adjusments with the Shiv Sena which,he said,also fielded candidates against the BJP’s candidates in some wards. However,the Shiv Sena which had won just four wards in 2007 elections did better than the BJP by bagging 14 wards.

PCMC warns water bill defaulters

The water department of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation has threatened to severe water connections of residents who fail to clear their tax arrears by March 31. Water department chief Mahavir Kamble said PCMC was expecting Rs 33 crore water tax by March 31. However,by March 15 it has been able to collect only Rs 16 crore which is half of the total anticipated collection. Kamble said the Pimpri-Chinchwad has 1.28 lakh water connections. “And in this fiscal year,over 33,000 water connections were alloted. From these connections,over Rs 9 lakh water tax was expected,but only Rs 3 crore could be recovered,” he said. Water officials said generally in the last week of the financial year,citizens,especially residential societies pay their water bill. “It has been observed that when warnings are issued,the residential societies pay their bills in large numbers. There are long queues every March-end at PCMC offices to pay water and property tax,” officials said.