Far from the civic bustle, PMC men get high on Mahabaleshwar

The inaugural session began with crates of Bisleri following a heavy breakfast — a blend of vegetarian and non-vegetarian delicacies. Rounds of tea and biscuits were served for the handful of those who bothered to remain present for the day-long discussions at Raj Bhavan’s Durbar Hall. Lunch was vegetarian and there was fruit salad for dessert. But the majority preferred sight-seeing and shopping in Mahabaleshwar’s colourful Malcom peth market.

The only odd-man-out in the otherwise fresh ‘n crisp hill station was the two-doored PMT bus among the fleet of Marutis, Sumos and milk-white civic Ambassadors around the venue.

The two-day Mahabaleshwar workshop to enlighten corporators on Pune’s problems organised by Mayor Vandana Chavan began on the backdrop of an undeclared boycott by the top brass in PMC.

Among those missing were Municipal Commissioner Ramanath Jha, additional commissioner Deepak Kapoor, PMT General Manager Prithwiraj Bayas and a host of others. Absence of officials was significantly conspicuous and carried with it imprints of a renewed cold war between the elected representatives and the civic administration. This undoubtedly marred the enthusiasm of the workshop holders.

A band of about 10 civic officials attending the meet restricted themselves only to the topics given to them. Many of them who travelled to the hill station minutes before the workshop took off, preferred to return immediately.