Indian Express: Pune: Saturday,
June 15, 2013.
Even as
controversy rages on over property owned by deputy municipal commissioner
Ramesh Shelar’s wife, the civic body chief has directed its employees to update
their property declaration by June 20, if they were to get their salary for
June.
In an order
issued on Friday, municipal commissioner Mahesh Pathak said that all the
department heads should collect the property declarations of 4,897 employees,
coming under Class I to Class III category, by June 20.
“The property
declaration should be updated as on March 31 this year. The department heads
should initiate action as per municipal service rules and stall the June salary
of the civic staff who fail to submit their declaration before the deadline.
This will also be stated in the confidential report of that employee,” he said.
The
department heads have to submit a detailed report of the exercise to the
municipal commissioner by June 25. Pathak added that even the civic department
heads would be denied their salary for the month of June if they failed to
submit the report within the stipulated time.
The order
also mentions that the civic administration has so far reviewed the property
declarations of only 3,552 out of 4,879 civic staff. Meanwhile, 653 of the
remaining 1,345 have not submitted their declarations. It has also been
observed that the civic department heads have not initiated action against
these defaulters.
“The present
status of property declaration is a very serious violation of discipline and
rules of municipal services. The civic department heads should comply with the
order,” Pathak said.
According to
deputy municipal commissioner R T Shinde, department heads often claim that the
municipal human resource department has not intimated them about the
declaration, in spite of sending the requests every three months.
The issue of
property declaration came into focus after it was discovered that Sharda
Shelar, wife of deputy municipal commissioner Ramesh Shelar, owned 13
apartments in Warje for which she had not paid the property tax until it was
brought to the attention of the PMC authorities through an RTI. The civic
officer had to hurriedly pay Rs 6.10 lakh as property tax to avoid being
penalised.
According to
information revealed in the reply to the RTI, the property had been registered
in her name, for which property tax had had not been assessed by the civic
department for several years. It was also found that unauthorised constructions
had come up on this property.
In another
decision, the municipal commissioner will also initiate action against civic
employees who fail to report their new responsibilities after being transferred
from their present position.
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