After spending a year and Rs 50 lakh, PCMC was ready for civic polls; but it may now have to start afresh
The Maharashtra Cabinet has decided to go with the four-member ward system for civic polls, setting aside the decision on the three-member system taken by the MVA government. This means the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation may have to repeat the entire process of poll preparation.
"If the four-member ward system is implemented, PCMC will have 128 corporators." (File Photo)
For one full year, over 800 election department employees of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) toiled round the clock to prepare for this year’s PCMC elections. Besides, the civic body had to shell out nearly Rs 50 lakh to put things in place. However, it now appears that their efforts were in vain as they will have to repeat the entire exercise following the Shinde-Fadnavis government’s decision to revert to the four-member ward system as in 2017. This also means that the PCMC is staring at a fresh expenditure of Rs 50 lakh.
On Wednesday, the state Cabinet decided to go with the four-member ward system for civic elections across the state, setting aside the decision on the three-member system taken by the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray last year.
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Civic officials said so far they have not received any intimation from the State Election Commission (SEC) in this regard. “We are awaiting further instructions from the State Election Commission,” assistant municipal commissioner Balasaheb Khandekar, who heads the PCMC’s election department, told The Indian Express on Friday.
Under the three-member ward system, PCMC was supposed to have 139 corporators. “If the four-member ward system is implemented, PCMC will have 128 corporators. In 2017, there were 32 wards or ‘prabhags’. Each of them elected four corporators. For the 2022 elections, we had demarcated 46 wards,” said Khandekar.
PCMC election officials said once the SEC conveys its decision, they will have to get down to the whole exercise of demarcation of wards, preparing voters’ list and conducting a draw of lots for reserving wards for various categories. “As I said, we are awaiting the SEC’s directives. As soon as we get it, we will get down to the task,” said Khandekar.
PCMC officials said over 800 civic election department employees worked to update the voters’ list as per the 2011 Census, drawing new boundaries of wards, taking up objections and suggestions, drawing lots for reservation. “This exercise started last year and it took us almost one year to complete it. We did not even take our weekly offs. We worked on Saturdays and Sundays as well and on public holidays… We are today in a position to hold the elections any time,” said Khandekar.
Election officials said the PCMC has made a provision of Rs 10 crore for conducting the 2022 civic elections. “For the three-member ward system we spent nearly Rs 50 lakh and there is a possibility that PCMC will have to spend another Rs 50 lakh for the whole exercise,” officials said. The major part of the expenditure was for printing the voters’ list, which cost the PCMC as much as Rs 27 lakh, they said.
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Raising doubts over the new election system, NCP spokesperson Yogesh Behl said, “The issue of civic elections is before the Supreme Court. In its last order, the court had asked the SEC to announce civic elections in two weeks. It is clear that the court does not want any more delay in holding the civic elections. Therefore, I don’t think the Supreme Court will approve the latest state government decision. If the decision is implemented, it would mean further delay in conducting the elections which, I am sure, the SC will not like.”
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
