Pune civic body in a fix, key officer in additional post over 100 km away
When contacted, Abhijit Bapat confirmed that he was working as Chief Officer of Satara Municipal Council after being appointed to PCMC as Deputy Municipal Commissioner two years ago.
According to sources in PCMC, Abhijit Bapat was “known for his good work” due to which the political dispensation in Satara “wanted him to continue there”. (Express file photo)
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A key opening in the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) administration in Pune district has virtually been blocked for nearly two years now. Reason: The officer posted to the position is also Chief Officer of the civic body in Satara district, over 100 km away.
A senior official told The Indian Express that the officer, Abhijit Bapat, was working as Chief Officer of Satara Municipal Council when he was transferred to PCMC as Deputy Municipal Commissioner in July 2021.
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According to the official, the Satara civic body relieved Bapat from the Satara post on July 12, 2021, following which he took charge of his office in PCMC. On July 15, 2021, the Urban Development Department gave him additional charge as Chief Officer of Satara Municipal Council. Since then, the official said, the officer has been working in Satara, and the PCMC has not given him any responsibility or salary.
When contacted, Bapat confirmed that he was working as Chief Officer of Satara Municipal Council after being appointed to PCMC as Deputy Municipal Commissioner two years ago. “All I can say is that I am following government directives in this regard,” he said.
Such dual postings, so far apart, does not usually happen in civic services, said K C Karkar, who served as Deputy Municipal Commissioner in the PCMC and the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), both in Pune district, before retiring in 2014.
“In my service with various civic bodies, I never heard of one officer holding two posts in two different cities that are located at least 125 km away from each other. Additional charge is usually given in the same city but not in different cities,” Karkar said.
“In this case, given the distance between Satara and Pimpri-Chinchwad, it’s PCMC’s loss since a senior position has been given to an officer who cannot be allotted any work…Similarly, citizens also suffer as PCMC might have allotted his work to another officer who is already handling one or two departments,” Karkar said.
According to sources in the civic body, Bapat was “known for his good work” due to which the political dispensation in Satara “wanted him to continue there”.
When contacted, Sachin Sahasrabuddhe, the Under Secretary in the state’s Urban Development Department, at the time of Bapat’s posting confirmed the order giving the additional post to the officer. He did not provide details on the reason for the additional post, saying that he would “have to check the file”. Sahasrabuddhe is now Deputy Secretary in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO).
Asked about Bapat’s position, PCMC Municipal Commissioner Shekhar Singh said, “He (Bapat) is working as Chief Officer in Satara Municipal Council. He has not been given any department to handle in PCMC.”
PCMC Deputy Municipal Commissioner Sunil Joshi, who handles the civic body’s administrative department, told The Indian Express, “Bapat was transferred to PCMC as Deputy Municipal Commissioner in July 2021 by the state government. He took charge during the tenure of then Municipal Commissioner Rajesh Patil. But immediately after taking charge, he was given additional charge by the state government as Chief Officer of Satara Municipal Council. PCMC has not given him charge of any department and is not paying him any salary.”
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Joshi said, “Since the government has given him additional charge in Satara, we are not issuing him any directions.”
Currently, Joshi said, of the 14 Deputy Municipal Commissioners that PCMC requires, there are eight state government officers and five of the civic body’s own officers — leaving Bapat’s post in limbo.
Criticising the dual appointment, Pimpri-Chinchwad civic activist Maruti Bhapkar said, “How can an officer be given charge of two posts, which are more than 100 km apart and in two separate districts? The state government needs to set the record straight whether this has been done due to the shortage of officers or due to other compulsions.”
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.
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