Indian Express 17.02.2010
Civic body elects standing committee members
Tags : corporation, PCMC Posted: Wednesday, Feb 17, 2010 at 0329 hrs
Eight corporators were elected as members of the standing committee of the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) at a meeting held on Monday. The eight made it to the panel after intense lobbying.
The outgoing members of the standing committee are Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) corporator and standing committee chairman Dnyaneshwar Bhalerao, members Bhausaheb Supe, Rajesh Pillay, Ganesh Bhondve, Surekha Salunkhe, Sunny Ovhal and Nirmala Kadam of the Congress and Ashok Sonawane of the BJP.
Several NCP corporators were eyeing the standing committee membershiip but NCP corporators Rajendra Salunkhe, Eknath Thorat, Suman Pawale, Prabhakar Waghere, Eknath Thorat made it to the committee. Babu Nair from Masulkar Colony areas and Jayashree Gawde from Chinchwadgaon were elected from the Congress and Varsha Madegiri from the BJP. The NCP has a majority in the house with 70 NCP corporators in a house of 105. So, out of the eight new members, NCP has four representatives in the standing committee, the Congress has two while the BJP and the alliance of corporators supporting NCP has one each.
Also, for the first time, Nair, a co-opted corporator was elected to the membership of the committee.
“It was a moment of pride for my ward and also the Malayalam community in Pune,” Nair said.
With the annual budget of the municipal corporation slated to be in excess of Rs. 1000 crores in the year 2010 – 2011, corporators are busy lobbying to get the standing committee chairman’s post. NCP corporators Suman Pawale, Jagdish Shetty and Prashant Shitole are in the fray for the top post
