Within days after it scrapped the Mumbai Development Plan-2034 and asked the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to prepare a fresh plan in the next four months, the Maharashtra Government has transferred Mumbai Municipal Commissioner Sitaram Kunte and replaced him with another senior IAS officer Ajoy Mehta in the post.
Having apparently not taken kindly to his staunch defence of the “lop-sided” Mumbai Development Plan-2034 which had come in for a fierce criticism from various quarters, the BJP-led saffron alliance moved out Kunte from the post as the BMC’s Commissioner and posted him as the State Principal Secretary (Environment).
Kunte’s transfer, carried out by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis before he left Mumbai during the weekend for Israel to attend the Agritech Israel-2015, comes ahead of his completing three years in the post on April 30. Kunte’s position as the BMC chief had become untenable especially after the various political parties, including the ruling Shiv Sena, Opposition Congress, NCP and MNS, non—government organisations, heritage conservators and eminent personalities expressed serious reservations about the questionable contents in the Mumbai Development Plan-2034.
A 1984 batch IAS officer, Ajoy Mehta on Monday took over as the new Mumbai Commissioner from his predecessor Kunte, who has replaced Mehta in his earlier post as the State Environment Secretary. Talking to media persons after taking charge as the new BMC chief, Mehta said: “'I am grateful to the Government of Maharashtra for appointing me as a Municipal Commissioner of Mumbai. I am aware that this post carries lots of responsibilities and is very high profile post from the administrative point of view. I will put my best efforts to provide best quality civic services to Mumbaikars'.
like Mehta himself admitted, the Mumbai Municipal Commissioner’s post carries a lot of responsibilities, considering that the BMC’s budgetary outlay for the year 2015-16 is staggering as Rs 33,514 crore which is larger than the annual budgetary outlays of the several smaller states in the country.
The first of the major tasks that Mehta has on his hand is to prepare a fresh Mumbai Development Plan, after removing the lacunae identified in the previous plan which was scrapped by the Maharashtra on April 21. He will have to submit the revised development plan by the end of August, 2015, to the Maharashtra government which will in turn call for objections and suggestions from the citizens.
A respected officer, Mehta has vast administrative experience, having held several crucial posts in the past. Apart from being the chairman of the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board, Mehta was earlier the Managing Director of the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company ltd. (MSEDCl), Maharashtra State Power Generation Company ltd. (MAHAGENCO). He was also the Managing Director of THE Maharashtra State Electricity Board Holding Company ltd. and on the Board of the restructured Ratnagiri Gas and Power Pvt. ltd., a gas based power plant on the coast of Maharashtra. Mehta was the Municipal Commissioner of Nashik where he had organized the Kumbh Mela some years ago. In the distant past he had worked as BMC’s Joint Municipal Commissioner.