Municipal Commissioner Dr Abhijeet Chaudhari, an officer of 2011 batch of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), has been transferred to Pune. The transfer order was issued on Monday by General Administration Department (GAD). Dr Chaudhari is posted as Metropolitan Commissioner, Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA), by downgrading the post for him. The transfer order asked Dr Chaudhari to hand over the charge to District Collector Dr Vipin Itankar.

 

As an Administrator of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), Chaudhari oversaw the most important programme of holding the civic elections during his more than two-and-a-half years stint at NMC. He was the Administrator at the civic body for most part of his tenure and had fairly smooth stint in absence of elected office bearers. The State Government has not yet notified as to who would be the new Municipal Commissioner, but the elected office-bearers have already pitched for a woman officer to head the NMC administration. The transfer of the Municipal Commissioner comes at a critical juncture as the civic budget is overdue.

 

Normally, the Municipal Commissioner tables the budget by month of February or first week of March. But this year, as the civic election process dragged till February and Standing Committee just constituted, the civic budget finalisation may take some more time. For the new Municipal Commissioner the challenges are quite stupendous, the main being mobilising finances as internal accruals are way off the mark, compared to stiff targets set by Municipal Commissioner in civic budget. With civic body staff busy during tax collection period in handling election process, the revenue mobilisation has taken a hit. NMC has to fund ambitious development project and the constant looking upto State Government to bridge the finance gap is delaying the completion of ongoing schemes.