All party leaders have expressed their deep concern over the security arrangements in the Pune Municipal Corporation headquarters. This concern is a reaction to the increasing number of untoward incidents on the premises of the civic headquarters. All party leaders were talking to the correspondents on Tuesday.

Mr. Nilesh Nikam, leader of the house said, “It is unfortunate that the security at the PMC headquarters has gone for a toss. In the last few months, people easily entered the press gallery of the general body meeting hall and shouted slogans during meetings. On Monday, the mayor himself was targeted by a group of people. It is a cause of concern.”
The city was shattered after the bomb blast at German Bakery on February 13 this year. Since then the security at public places, markets, malls and cinema halls has been the major concern of the Pune Police. A committee of experts to scrutinize the security arrangements in the city had been appointed under the chairmanship of N.V. Merani, former principal secretary of the Public Works Department. The committee had come up with some regulations to be followed in the security arrangements.

The suggestions of the committee said that special outposts for the security of the public places should be set up. In order to prevent direct entry of the vehicles towards the important structures in the city, approach roads should be constructed with sufficient restraints. The committee also thought that a control room would make the security and electronic surveillance operations easier. Moreover, light controls, blast resistant constructions and fire-safety requirements were the prime needs as listed down by the Merani committee.

Unfortunately the PMC administration has turned a deaf year to these regulations and still continues with its own arrangements of the security wing.

Mr. Aba Bagul criticized the PMC security wing in the talk with the correspondents on Tuesday. He said, “It has been proved that the security wing at the PMC is not at all efficient.”

Among the major security arrangements in the premises of the PMC building, installation of the CCTV cameras, metal frames, metal detectors and walkie-talkie handsets are a few.  Some advanced technical equipments too have been installed here to tackle an emergency. But these arrangements have proved insufficient to meet the security requirements. In spite of all these arrangements, several organizations have interfered in the on-goings of the civic administration.

In the recent incident last week, a group of protesters rushed into the Mayor’s cabin and disrupted the office furniture and also broke the glass of a notice board in the office. The security arrangements seemed a joke that time as people shouting slogans did not find it difficult to reach the Mayor’s cabin.

- Yogesh Sapre