Panvel Civic Body Drops 111 Anti-Encroachment Workers, Slashes 3-Year Budget By ₹28.65 Crore

Navi Mumbai: The Panvel Municipal Corporation has decided to discontinue the services of 111 controversial contractual workers deployed with its anti-encroachment squad over the past two years. The civic body has also revised its proposal for manpower and machinery required for anti-encroachment drives, reducing the estimated expenditure for three years from Rs47.70 crore to Rs 19.05 crore.

The decision was taken at the general body meeting on Friday following objections from corporators, who questioned the need to retain additional contractual workers despite the lack of a visible reduction in encroachments across the city.

The 111 workers had initially been hired on a temporary basis for three months, but their services were repeatedly extended, sometimes for three months and at other times for six months, allowing them to continue for nearly two years. Corporators questioned the expenditure incurred on their salaries, arguing that the deployment had failed to deliver the desired results.

Questions were also raised over the alleged non-use of machinery despite bills being generated for it. The revised proposal provides for the use of machinery newly hired by the municipal corporation on a rental basis. The discussion also referred to an earlier controversy in Kamothe, following which assistant commissioner Rupali Mane lost her charge as ward officer.

Congress corporator Latif Shaikh had, at the previous meeting, suggested that instead of appointing a separate contractor for anti-encroachment operations, the civic body should hire machinery on a rental basis or purchase it. He had also proposed deploying workers through the Raigad Security Board and reducing the number of contractual workers.

The civic administration incorporated these suggestions into the revised proposal, bringing down the estimated annual expenditure from Rs 15.90 crore to Rs 6.35 crore and the total three-year outlay from Rs 47.70 crore to Rs 19.05 crore.

“We are not opposed to development works, but we will not tolerate the wastage of taxpayers’ money. We had to push for the anti-encroachment proposal to be reduced substantially. I congratulate the ruling side for accepting our suggestions,” Shaikh said.

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