NCP delegation led by Mangala Kadam hands over the Bisleri bottle to Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar. (Express)The Pimpri-Chinchwad unit of NCP on Tuesday condemned the BJP-led PCMC administration, for “snatching drinking water from mouths of Pimpri-Chinchwad residents.”
A delegation of NCP leaders met Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar and presented him with a Bisleri bottle to protest his administration’s “move to deny” drinking water to over 20 lakh residents of the industrial city despite overflowing dam and rivers.
The delegation included former mayors Mangala Kadam and Aparna Doke, NCP leaders Nana Kate, who is the Opposition leader, Mayur Kalate, Pankaj Bhalekar, Mai Kate, Sangita Tamhane and Vaishali Kalbhor.
Slamming Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar, former mayor and NCP leader Mangala Kadam, who led the NCP delegation, said, “Commissioner Hardikar is intelligent, but is highly indecisive. He can’t take any decision, whether about water or the growing garbage problem in the city.”
Kadam said the civic body was not providing relief to residents even when it was in the position to do so. “We asked Hardikar that when there is water everywhere in the city, it is raining heavily, rivers and dam are full, why are they denying drinking water to residents? He kept saying they were planning supply for months ahead. This does not make sense. People need water now. They have suffered a nightmare over the past three months,” she said.
Kadam said the delegation also wanted to know whether Hardikar was under pressure from the tanker lobby and BJP leaders. “He denied it politely, but we think he is under some kind of pressure. He is intelligent, but not acting sensibly and practically,” she said.
Another NCP leader, Datta Sane, said, “Commissioner Hardikar has become a puppet in the hands of the BJP. The entire Opposition will hit the streets if the BJP-ruled PCMC refuses to restore the old water supply arrangement.”
The commissioner told the delegation he had left the decision to Mayor Rahul Jadhav. “The ball is now in the mayor’s court,” he told the delegation, while insisting that they have made a long-term water supply plan.
Earlier, BJP president Laxman Jagtap told The Indian Express that he did not understand why the PCMC administration was not restoring water supply. “Don’t know what the commissioner has in mind…,” he said. Shiv Sena MP Shrirang Barne said he had personally met the PCMC chief, but he was refusing to take the decision.
