New policy to streamline social schemes of PMC

PUNE: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) will introduce a new policy for effective implementation of its social and welfare schemes and scrap the unwanted ones after conducting a need assessment.
“A number of schemes have been introduced by the civic body in the past. Some of them have lost relevance, but have not been scrapped. The civic body is still spending on them.It is high time that these schemes were reconsidered,” said Murlidhar Mohol, the chairman of the standing committee.
He said the committee had decided to draft a policy and a proposal regarding it would be rolled out soon. The elected party members will be consulted on the discontinuation of unwanted schemes. The committee was supposed to take a call on the proposal this week, but it was postponed.
Every year, the PMC announces various welfare schemes in the form of scholarships and pensions, but only a few are implemented. Out of 18,874 estimated beneficiaries in the city, only 31 have received the benefits of these schemes so far.
According to the data collated by PMC, around Rs6.5 crore have been set aside in the civic budget for these schemes. However, the total expenses are around Rs10.3 crore and the administration will have to ensure that the remaining amount is arranged. The demand to divert funds towards the existing schemes was put before the standing committee recently.
The urban community development (UCD) department officials said the civic body was running as many as 25 schemes and the PMC spends around Rs60 crore on them.
“The civic administration will do the assessment and handover a priority list to the elected members. The corporators will take the final decision,” said Sanjay Ranjane, the head of UCD.
He said options such as putting a cap on beneficiaries and fixing income limits should be included in the schemes. It will help reduce the number of beneficiaries.
A majority of these funds is spent on scholarships to school students. The civic administration has introduced a number of scholarships for students. Students of Standard X and XII from municipal, private schools and colleges are awarded financial help. The PMC spends over Rs20 crore per year on the same.