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indianexpress: For nearly 16 years, 60-year-old T Deshmukh taught primary and secondary school students at the Erin Nagarwala School. All these years, her efforts for a pay scale corresponding to her qualification of MA and B.Ed had gone in vain, but now, for the past two years since her retirement in 2004, Deshmukh has had to take on yet another long-winding battle – to secure over Rs. 60,000 due to her as gratuity from the school management.

This is the plight of many teachers in unaided primary schools across the state, who, despite being entitled under Section 28 (4) of the Maharashtra Employees of Private Schools (MEPS) Rules, 1981, to receive gratuity on termination of service, are being denied the same. The reason being cited by the school managements is a 2004 Supreme Court ruling saying that since teachers cannot be classified as employees, they are not entitled to gratuity as per the Payment of Gratuity Act (PGA), 1972.
 
“Managements of unaided schools are now falling back on this order while denying gratuity to teachers who have retired,” said People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) leader RP Nene, who assisted Deshmukh with her case.

While teachers of government-aided schools in most states get gratuity, many states including Maharashtra have separate legislations governing teachers in private and unaided schools. “This is barring Bihar, West Bengal, Gujarat, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, which do not have such legislation,” said Father Walter Saldanha, president of the Labour Research and Consultancy Bureau, who has been taken up several such cases of teachers from convent schools.

indianexpress: Corporators and the municipal commissioner in the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) have locked horns. While the corporators seek assistant municipal commissioner (administration) Amrut Sawant’s transfer apparently over his style of functioning, Commissioner Dilip Band stands by his officer.

Cutting across party lines, corporators have decided to boycott the standing committee, the general body and divisional committee meetings till Sawant is transferred to another department. Last Tuesday’s standing committee meeting was adjourned without transacting any business as the members unanimously passed a resolution urging the commissioner to shunt out Sawant.
 
Mayor Vaishali Ghodekar, who is the presiding officer at general body meetings, said corporators belonging to all parties had decided to stay away from the general body meetings till Sawant was transferred. “Sawant is rude and discourteous to corporators. Whenever we seek any information from him, he tells us to get it from the municipal commissioner. Then what is he doing in that department? And it is a fact that allegations against him from citizens are growing by the day.”

While sources in the civic administration said the real reason behind corporators’ demand is that “no money is changing hands” in the Band regime for getting a job in the PCMC, committee chairman Ajit Gavahane denied that corporators were seeking Sawant’s transfer because they were not getting their share of the pie. “We are objecting to Sawant’s style of functioning. He has no respect for elected representatives. He doesn’t keep us informed about administrative decisions. The assistant municipal commissioner thinks PCMC is a private limited company and he is the owner,” Gavahane said, adding that he had received complaints about “certain wrong doings” in the recruitment in the PCMC services.

indianexpress:  The Pune Municipal Transport (PMT) is known for its pathetic connectivity and decade-long proposals for metro rail and sky bus service have remained non-starters, but the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) wants to discourage Puneites from using personal vehicles by imposing a new vehicle tax.

Talking to media on Saturday municipal commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi said, “The PMC will table a proposal to the State Government seeking in principal sanction for imposing vehicle tax to discourage the use of personal vehicles”.

On the concluding day of the three-day workshop organised by the PMC to discuss the functioning of the civic body and introduce the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation Act to corporators, Pardeshi said PMC has decided to pursue the idea of a new vehicle tax. “The vehicle tax was existent in 1980s and after a State Government circular it was stopped. The state government offered an annual grant of Rs 6 crore to the municipal corporation as a substitute. However by imposing the vehicle tax the PMC could get an additional annual revenue of Rs 50-70 crore and also it will discourage people from plying their vehicles on roads,” said Pardeshi.

He added that the final module for the vehicle tax has not yet been decided. “The tax could be collected through RTO as it was done earlier. Second option is to increase the existing street tax in the property tax bills. Option of imposing tax per vehicle owned by the family is also open. Old vehicles will be levied with lesser tax while new vehicle owners will have to pay more,” said Pardeshi. The data on vehicles could be collected from the RTO and also the PMC could trace vehicles from the property tax billing address.

indianexpress: The city police have said that NRI Nimesh Topiwala, had not kidnapped his son Mihir (5) from the custody of his estranged wife Deepa. DCP (Crime) Anil Kumbhare said, “It is not at all a kidnapping case. The father-son duo was living in an apartment in Magarpatta city. We have come to know that the boy’s mother had filed a missing complaint following which the Gujarat police traced the boy to Pune. They were taken to Gujarat today.”

Deepa had married Nimesh in 1999. However, differences between the two led to their separation.

indianexpress: The Congress unit in Pimpri-Chinchwad has condemned the murder attempt on its Pimpri corporator Amar Mulchandani.

In a letter to police commissioner Jayant Umranikar and deputy commissioner of Police (Zone III) Chandrashekhar Daithankar, Congress unit president Bhausaheb Bhoir has sought police protection for its party corporators.

“We request you to thoroughly investigate and book the culprits behind the attack. Kindly take necessary steps to give protection to our party corporators,” Bhoir said in the letter. Bhoir said the incident has shocked the citizens and that the police should counter such anti-social acts. While DCP Daithankar was not available for comment, assistant commissioner of police said M U Karjatkar said one person has been arrested in the case while two are still absconding. He also attributed election rivalry as the reason behind the attack on Mulchandani.
 

indianexpress: Aparna Dheeraj Khanna (33), a resident of Kondhwa Khurd in a complaint lodged with the Wanavdi police, said that a gang of unidentified thieves stole gold and silver ornaments besides cash totally worth Rs 1.47 lakh on Friday. According to the police, the thieves gained entry into the house by removing the window panes of the bathroom and decamped with the booty. No arrests have been made yet.