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indianexpress:  Ganeshshotsav is long over but Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) administration and politicians stand divided over repairing roads dug by mandals to put up pandals. While the civic administration continues to stick to its stand that mandals will have to pay for digging roads, 26 BJP corporators say they have submitted letters asking the administration to utilise Rs 25,000 from their respective development funds for the purpose.

There is a new twist to the whole drama now with mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale saying there is no need for either the mandals or the corporators to pay for the bad state of roads, PMC would shell out the money for the repairs from the annual budget for roads.

“There is no need for BJP corporators or any other corporator to shell out money from their ward-level development funds. There is no question of the administration recovering repair costs from mandals.The PMC’s annual budget has a separate provision for road repair and we are using the same,” said Bhosale.

She added that if the mandals repair roads, PMC would acknowledge their effort. “The question is of maintaining good roads. PMC has no dearth of money to repair roads,” she added.

Just before the festival, mandals, ignoring the mayor’s appeal and the civic administration’s warning, had dug up the roads to pitch pandals. PMC promptly said the erring mandals would have to pay the cost of repairs.

indianexpress:  Please pay your property tax by October 15 and avoid paying penalty and confiscation of your property…” That’s the SMS doing the rounds on cellphones of citizens in Pimpri-Chinchwad. The SMSes are being sent to property owners by the property tax department of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation.
Assistant municipal commissioner Sahebrao Gaikwad told Pune Newsline on Sunday that his department has set the deadline of October 15 as a large number of property tax holders are yet to pay their taxes. “We have issued an appeal to the property tax owners,” Gaikwad said.

There are in all 2,25,000 property tax holders in the twin industrial town. “In the last six months, just over a lakh property tax holders have paid up. We are reminding citizens so that they can avoid paying penalty,” he said.

PCMC imposes a penalty of 12.5 per cent of the property tax if it is paid after the set deadline. “If the tax and penalty both are not paid, then we confiscate properties,” he said.

This year, the property tax department has so far collected Rs 35 crore. “Last fiscal, we had collected a revenue of Rs 60 crore and this year we hope to garner more revenue as several new properties have been added,” he said, adding that due to increased urbanisation as many as 1,250 new properties have come up in town in last one year.

indianexpress: University of Pune Vice Chancellor Narendra Jadhav promised students on Sunday that their complaints regarding hostel facilities including poor drinking water supply, improper drainage and toilet facilities and so on would be resolved within three months’ time.

A campus reorganisation committee consisting of teachers and students has been set up for the same, Jadhav said. On Friday, over 300 students had staged protests in front of the Vice chancellor’s residence with a host of complaints regarding unhygienic and poor hostel facilities prompting the V-C to set up a meeting with the students at noon on Sunday.

Students have also been given a go-ahead to circulate a newsletter to highlight their complaints. Further, each floor in the hostel would have a floor marshal for the purpose of co-ordination. A weekly meeting between the students and the V-C to monitor the situation has also been proposed. Jadhav has reassured the students that around 400 non-teaching staff would be recruited to keep the hostel clean and to undertake pending emergency work.

The University campus has witnessed unrest over lack of hygiene and adequate facilities at the hostels in the past few days. On September 6, the residents of the girls’ hostels came out in protest against the lack of space and unhygienic conditions.

The University authorities agree that repair works are definitely needed, and some work has already been undertaken. As for the rest of the works, they will also be undertaken as soon as possible, authorities had assured the protesting residents of the boys hostel.

indianexpress: A 15-Year-Old dispute between two families from Kolavire village from Purandar taluka in Pune district over land being used for construction of a bund was resolved under Mahatma Gandhi Tanta Mukta Yojana. Misunderstandings between two families from Shelgaon village from Indapur taluka too were resolved under the scheme.

The scheme, announced on August 15, which encourages villagers to solve their disputes, is catching up in a big way. Many are vying to become the first disputes-free village. The maximum cases resolved in the village will be assessed by the State government and will compete for Tanta Mukta Gaon award.

With the deadline extended to register the cases up to October 15, more are expected to participate. All the cases have to be solved by March.

Applications for the cases had to be registered with the Tanta Mukta Committee of the village. Once the complaint is registered, both disputing parties are issued a notice and a meeting is conducted. After hearing both parties, a solution is arrived at. If both parties agree, the issue is resolved.

In Pune, of the 1,377 villages, 1,294 villages participated, taking it to 94 per cent. There are 135 villages who have registered the cases under the scheme with 215 as civil, revenue and criminal cases. Sixty seven cases have been resolved and 148 yet have to be resolved for Pune district.

indianexpress: When you think of technology in every phase of business, public sector banks are the last to come to mind. However, they are becoming more youth sensitive and going for a complete makeover, only so they can include the younger generation.
The branch of Bank of Baroda at Baner which opened on April 21 has a lounge providing free internet, a library and a Plasma TV to its customers. The branch has more than 85 per cent of its clientele from the younger generation.

“CMD Anil Khandelwal conceptualised the Genext branch, while the final touches were given by deputy general manager S K Das, and zone head S S Mundra. We conducted an in-house survey all over India and found out that about 85 per cent of our customers belonged to the 45 + age bracket. Since youth consists of a majority of the population, we thought of conceptualising a segment that should cater to the younger customers, apart from providing regular services,” says Rahul Singh, Marketing Officer of the branch.

Other innovations they came up with are Gen Next Power, Gen Next Junior, Gen Next Lifestyle and Gen Next Suvidha services for the youth. “Gen Next Junior makes sure that even 10-year-olds can open an account with us, Rs 500 being the average quarterly balance required to open the account. Moreover, the lounge offers 50 hours of free internet to the customers and the library has a whole gamut of best-sellers. The idea is that instead of making the customers wait while the transactions are carried out, they can always avail of these benefits, instead of getting bored,” adds Singh.

indianexpress: The Antyodaya Kaamgar Parishad Registered Trade Union has come out in protest against the arrest of Kailas Ramesh Chauhan (30), Kokila Ramesh Chauhan (47), Anand Ashok Chawre (32), Sunita Nathu Chauhan (37), all residents of Somwar Peth, and Sanjay Gorakh Jedhe, a resident of Sasanenagar, Hadapsar. The five had barged into the office of Sassoon General Hospital’s administrative officer, Kadu Triyambak Sukase (43) on Saturday and abused him for refusing to give them jobs at the hospital, as per the Laad-Page Committee recommendations.

After Sukase lodged a complaint with the Bund Garden police about the incident, the five were arrested on charges of rioting and preventing a public servant from discharging his duty. The union has now threatened a mass protest, condemning the arrests as unjustly and based on a false complaint.

The incident comes in the context of the Laad-Page Committee recommendations which had suggested that legal successors of conservancy staff be given their predecessor’s posts. The hospital, which had decided to implement the committee’s suggestions had drawn up a list of contenders, last month. While some were granted employment, the hospital did not employ the five accused citing the reason of lack of adequate vacancies.

The Parishad through a press note alleged that though 13 seats were vacant in the hospital for the past one and half years, over 20-25 cases of contenders for employment, were pending. The union has also alleged that the hospital was indulging in tampering with the list of its retired conservancy personnel and had not bothered to notify many such families of the staff, whose successors would be eligible. The Parishad said that as a means of protest, the conservancy staff of the hospital would observe October 15 as ‘Black Day’ and sport black bands.

indianexpress: Sixteen rural students with meritorious performances were given scholarships by the Malhotra Weikfield Foundation recently. “This is a special moment of celebration of new spirit for those students who have achieved special recognition and merit in the areas of pure sciences,’’ said eminent scientist Dr RA Mashelkar while speaking at the award function at the the Symbiosis Institute of Management studies, Khadki. Chairman of the foundation S P Malhotra and co-chairman B R Bahri announced the scholarships of Rs 15,000 per year for a graduation course and Rs 20,000 per year for a post graduate course in pure sciences such as physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, astrophysics that would be given to about 40 students. Five scholarships of Rs one lakh each will also be given for for foreign studies in nano-science.

Mashelkar stressed the need for a golden triangle where students, their parents and mentors work together to bring excellence in the field of pure sciences. Others present at the function where Dr Vijay Bhatkar and S B Mujumdar.