In the House, mayor sings national song alone

When you talk about punctuality, it seems there is none among the corporators of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).

This was evident on Monday when the general body, which is the main policy making body of the PMC, had convened its meeting to discuss at length the civic budget 2013-14.

The scheduled time for the meeting was 11 am. However, no corporator or civic official was present at the meeting barring mayor Vaishali Bankar. In fact, she was the only one to attend the national song before the commencement of the meeting.

The next to follow were standing committee chairman Baburao Chandere and group leader of the Republican Party of India Siddharth Dhende, who arrived 10 minutes after the scheduled time. In the 152-member house, the quorum of a meeting is the presence of at least 51 members. As the required number of members had not arrived for the meeting, the mayor preferred to wait for the members along with a couple of head of departments and municipal secretary Sunil Parkhi.

Leader of the House Subhash Jagtap, who had arrived around 11.13 am, called for adjournment motion around 11.17 am, just after chairman of Woman and Child Welfare Committee Meenal Saravade had walked in.

When the motion adjourning the business of the House till noon was called, there were less 20 members in the house, 31 short of the required number.

Opposition leader Vasant More, Congress group leader Arvind Shinde, Shiv Sena group leader Ashok Harnawal, Bharatiya Janata Party group leader Ashok Yenpure, municipal commissioner Mahesh Pathak and several civic officials were absent at the meeting.

I don’t think that would have been any loss of man hours if the corporators would have come on time. They wouldn’t have taken right decisions. The elected representatives do not prioritise issues like sewage treatment plant, school education, health and water,” said Arun Bhatia, former IAS officer and PMC commissioner.

“Discussion on the budget is just a clerical job. There is no imagination in it. Just political decisions are taken by the corporators at the cost of public money,” he added.

President of Jalbiradari Vinod Bodhankar said, “The low attendance was due to the fact that most of the corporators had decided to stall the meeting. They were just following their parties’ orders.”