The Indian Express            24.10.2013

Poor service at CFCs prompts PMC to rope in new agency

With complaints of poor service at Citizen Facilitation Centre rising by the day, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has roped in a new agency to provide various civic services at the 26 centres across the city.

The civic body had set up CFCs to ensure citizens do not have to make rounds of civic offices to file complaints, pay property tax, procure birth and death certificate and renew licences. These services are being provided at CFCs set up at 15 ward offices, PMC main building and 10 various locations in 23 merged villages.

There are five counters at each CFC besides one for inquiry.

"Earlier, the agency was charging Rs 38 from the civic body for each transaction at CFC. Now, the new agency will charge only Rs 24 for each transaction," said Vishal Tambe, Chairperson, PMC Standing Committee.

Meanwhile, the civic administration has failed to discontinue the contract with another agency that has been running kiosks to offer civic services at 67 spots across the city. For the past five years, the civic body has been paying Rs 14,700 per kiosk every month to the agency but it is hardly of any use as they offer only a few services.

A visit to some of these kiosks revealed that they only collect property tax cheques even as boards display a list of facilities available.

The Indian Express            24.10.2013

MC to auction 16 parking lots on Nov 6

The municipal corporation will auction 16 paid parking lots, for which it received has received 230 applications, on November 6. The last date of submission of applications was Wednesday.

The last auction was not a success as no contractor bidded for the parking lots. This was due to the MC's decision to collect 12.36 per cent service tax from contractors who refused to pay the same.

The contractors demanded that either the parking charges be increased or the reserve price of the parking lots be reduced. The civic body has now reduced the reserve price.

There are a total of 23 paid parking lots in different sectors of the city. A number of these were surrendered by the contractors, while for some the term of allotment had ended.