Money Life: Vineeta Deshmukh: Pune: Thursday, May 01, 2025.
ust like the toll plaza that we pay irrespective of the bad condition of roads and other services on expressways, property tax has to be promptly paid by citizens irrespective of pathetic civic amenities, Pune being a sterling example.
Questioning the reason why she must pay property tax when she hasn’t received the desired services, Pune-based RTI activist Qaneez Sukhrani invoked the transparency law to get information from the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) about the details of services it has rendered so that she is convinced of the reason to pay her property tax.
Ms Sukhrani filed ten RTI applications to the public information officers (PIO) of various departments of the PMC, between 2020 and 2021, asking them to give detailed replies to the following inadequate services, the information of which is her right as a tax-paying citizen:
- Pathetic road conditions and incomplete trench refills
- Broken or non-existent footpaths, with rampant encroachments
- Lack of hawker regulation
- Dumping of construction debris and absence of clean-up mechanisms
- Unmanaged and mixed garbage, leading to choked drains and flooding
- No system for pruning or removing broken tree branches and dead cables
- Arbitrary water supply controls and dependence on private water tankers despite water being part of the tax bill
States Ms Sukhrani, “Despite filing over ten RTI applications, I received no satisfactory response from the PMC regarding the state of civic amenities in my locality. My moot point is: Why should citizens pay property tax when basic services are not delivered?”
Subsequently, Ms Sukhrani, along with her two fellow complainants from Prabhag 3 of Pune, Ashutosh Mashruwala and Umesh Magar, filed a case before the additional district consumer redressal commission in Pune, complaining that the PMC continues to demand full property tax payments while failing to provide even the most basic municipal services mandated under the Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act, 1949.
The petition filed by them states that: “Both field staff and senior officers—routinely neglect their statutory responsibilities under sections 203(1), 154, 130, 131, and other related provisions of the Act. Despite charging citizens under various heads such as General Tax (32.75%), Conservancy Tax (20.5%), Water & Sewerage (9.5%), and Street Tax (10%), the civic body has failed to deliver services corresponding to these levies.”
In her complaint, Ms Sukhrani also highlights that she continued to be a law-abiding citizen and paid her property tax for the financial year 2020–21, even though the condition of basic amenities was appalling. However, in 2021–22, she withheld her tax payment and parked the amount in a separate account with PMC named as the beneficiary. This amount, she states, will only be released once the civic body demonstrates regular, daily delivery of essential services for a continuous period of at least six months.
Rues Ms Sukhrani, “After none of my ten RTI applications yielded results, during 2020 and 2021, I have sent nearly 90 email communications—many of them with photographs—to PMC’s municipal commissioner, the chief minister’s office, the principal secretary of the urban development department (UD-2), and the mayor, highlighting chronic civic lapses.”
She accuses the four elected BJP Nagarsevaks of Prabhag #3—Rahul Bhandare, Shweta Khose-Galande, Mukta Jagtap, and Bapurav Gangaram Karne—of vanishing after elections and focusing more on ribbon-cutting ceremonies than on governance. According to the complaint, these representatives failed to supervise or monitor PMC’s functioning in their jurisdiction.
On 16 August 2021, Ms Sukhrani invited additional commissioner Ravindra Binwade for a site visit. When he declined, she took assistant municipal commissioner Suhas Jagtap on a tour of the problem areas in September 2021. Legal notices were then served to PMC’s commissioner, mayor, and other top officials on 20 September 2021. Ironically, the complainants state that the situation deteriorated further after this step, highlighting PMC’s alleged apathy and lack of accountability.
Consumer Forum: Timeline of delayed proceedings3 October 2024: Submission of verbal and written arguments.
19 December 2024: Scheduled arguments on legal points.
19 January 2025: Supposed delivery of the final order, was deferred due to system migration. Wait time: 2 hours.
21 February 2025: Yet again, no order was delivered.
20 March 2025 Pune DCDRC president Anil B Jawalekar acknowledged that hard copies cannot be issued until the website migration is complete and advised follow-ups with the record office.
Since 10 March 2025 repeated calls and visits to the DCDRC office have yielded no clarity. Officers appear confused, shifting responsibility from one department to another.
As of 24th March, there is no official status update. The record room staff seem unaware of the procedural next steps, while the president is rendered powerless—caught in a bureaucratic deadlock between the Union ministry of consumer affairs and the yet-to-be-fully-operational e-Jagriti platform.
Isn’t the consumer affairs ministry accountable, asks Ms Sukhrani.
Ms Sukhrani states angrily that “The PMC’s lack of actions violates the Prevention of Delay in Discharge of Official Duties Rules, 2013, as well as the RTI Act, 2005. Expecting citizens to pay property tax without providing corresponding services is arbitrary and goes against principles of natural and fair justice.”
The case was officially filed on 25 November 2021 and admitted by the consumer court on 13 December 2021. Here too, Ms Sukhrani faced inordinate delays. She rues, “Over the past three years, we have faced multiple setbacks including a vacant bench, prolonged absenteeism, and the absence of a presiding officer.”
However, the most recent delay—stretching four months—has reached unacceptable levels. Two reasons have been provided for the non-issuance of the order:
1. The order has not reached the record room.
2. The national consumer disputes redressal commission’s (NCDRC) online system is in the process of migrating to the e-jagriti platform – from (https://confonet.nic.in) to the new (https://e-jagriti.gov.in) platform.
Ms Sukhrani minces no words at this inordinate delay of website migration when she says that “Ironically, the e-Jagriti website claims to promote ‘exemplary e-governance characterised by efficiency, transparency, and accessibility’ and aims to eliminate long pendency of disputes. On the ground, however, the experience at Pune’s district consumer disputes redressal commission (DCDRC) tells a very different story.”
The `Prevention of Delay in Discharge of Official Duties Act, 2005’, and its associated Rules of 2013, stipulate that:
- Acknowledgement of emails must be provided by officers (section 8).
- No file should remain pending for more than seven working days (section 10).
These statutory provisions are being blatantly ignored.
Vinita Deshmukh is consulting editor of Moneylife. She is also the convener of the Pune Metro Jagruti Abhiyaan. She is the recipient of prestigious awards like the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting, which she won twice in 1998 and 2005 and the Chameli Devi Jain Award for outstanding media person for her investigation series on Dow Chemicals. She co-authored the book "To The Last Bullet - The Inspiring Story of A Braveheart - Ashok Kamte" with Vinita Kamte and is the author of "The Mighty Fall".)
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