Nagpur: NDS threatens to withdraw as CAFO ‘insults’ commandant

NAGPUR: The Nuisance Detection Squad (NDS) of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) on Tuesday threatened to withdraw from the services after chief accounts and finance officer Vijay Kolhe allegedly misbehaved with its commandant Virsen Tambe.
The NDS had approached the NMC’s finance and accounts department to enquire about the status of June honorarium of 176 civic cops deployed in all 10 zones.
Usually, the department disburses the monthly honorarium of the NDS team before 10th of every month, which is being delayed for the last couple of months. “The NDS personnel got their honorarium for May on June 26,” said sources.
This month too, the honorarium was not disbursed even after July 10. So, on Monday, NDS commandant Tambe had sent a staff from his department to the accounts department to enquire about it. Dahibale, an official from the accounts department, informed the staff that the honorarium file clearance was pending with accounts officer Rajesh Meshram for his and CAFO’s signatures. The staff then approached Meshram, who clarified that no file related to NDS honorarium was pending with him. In fact, Meshram said he did not receive any such file.
Dahibale then claimed to have misplaced the NDS honorarium file. However, the file was later traced with Dahibale himself after Tambe threatened to approach municipal commissioner Radhakrishnan B.
Instead of disbursing the pending honorarium, Kolhe on Tuesday summoned the NDS commandant and allegedly misbehaved with him. “Though I was talking to him humbly, Kolhe behaved arrogantly,” claimed Tambe.
Agitated over the episode, all NDS zonal heads and civic cops have rallied behind their commandant and offered to withdraw their services with immediate effect.
Later, Tambe met additional municipal commissioner Ram Joshi, deputy commissioner Nirbhay Jain and apprised them of the issue. He also reported the incident to mayor Dayashankar Tiwari, who assured to look into the matter.
The mayor said he has already directed the CAFO to release the NDS dues at the earliest. “Delay without any reason will not be tolerated,” said Tiwari. The mayor also said the CAFO has denied to have misbehaved with the NDS commandant.
The NMC has roped in NDS team to curb civic nuisances like throwing garbage in public places, urinating in open, stocking construction material on footpaths and roads etc. Besides, the civic body has also used the NDS for implementing Covid-19 protocols, providing security at RT-PCR testing and vaccination centres.
Moreover, the NDS personnel have also helped the NMC’s enforcement department during anti-encroachment drives across the city, apart from recovering Rs13 crore revenue from defaulters.