55% general body meets adjourned in Pune

Of the 86 general body (GB) meetings of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) scheduled in 2010-11, only 38 took place and the rest, amounting to 55%, were adjourned.

This information was given to the media by corporator, Anil Shirole of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday.

The GB meetings are held four or five times a month. As per the provisions of the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation (BPMC), Act, 1949, these meetings are essential for the functioning of the civic body.

It is compulsory for all officers to be present at the meetings, which are chaired by the mayor. All decisions of the civic body have to be ratified at these meetings. However, often they are disrupted by corporators or adjourned for various reasons.

Shirole had applied under the Right To Information (RTI) Act, 2005, to the office of the municipal secretary, asking for details of the GB meetings and questions discussed in them from 2007 to 2011.

“The information given to me was shocking. Of the 395 meetings scheduled in the period, 148 were adjourned and of the 302 questions listed for discussion in the GB only 22 were discussed.

The remaining 280 issues remained unresolved,” he said.
Shirole said the adjournment of the meetings reflected badly on the part of the corporators. “The meetings are quite a substantial investment on the part of the PMC in terms of manpower and the tax payers’ money,” he said.

“I have written to the mayor, drawing his attention to this disturbing trend in the past five years. The mayor will be convening an all-party meeting to discuss this issue,” he said.