Pune: PMC Losses Rs 60 Lakh Annually As Kondhwa Laboratory Lease Agreement Is Not Approved

Pune, 13th August 2021: The Pune municipal corporation (PMC) is losing Rs 60 lakh annually for the last two years as the Kondhwa Laboratory Lease Agreement is not approved by the general body. It indicates the inactivity of corporators.

PMC set up a laboratory at Kondhwa in 2011 to test food and food items. In the year 2014, state-of-the-art equipment worth Rs. 7.70 crores were also procured for it. Meanwhile, a five-year agreement was signed with the Food Hygiene and Health Lab, saying PMC couldn’t run the laboratory. As per this agreement, PMC decided to give Rs. 52.80 lakh to the organization every year. The agreement also proposed an increase of 15 percent per annum.

As per the agreement made with the organization, PMC has given Rs. 3.56 crore to the organization. The corporation has also spent Rs 60 lakh for electricity bills as well as chemicals and other things required for the laboratory. Excluding all these expenses, it was claimed that PMC would get an annual income of at least Rs 50 lakhs every year.

However, Vivek Velankar, President of Sajag Nagrik Manch, has revealed that the laboratory has earned only Rs 12 lakh in the last five years. Even after the matter came to light three years ago. The proposal is being pushed forward even though the sources of income of the corporation are limited. Therefore, the NGO has demanded that the proposal be accepted immediately.

Velankar said, “The project on which crores of rupees of citizens is being spent should be channelised properly and the land should be leased out along with machinery.”