Ward offices not to maintain pipelines

pune: pune municipal commissioner t c benjamin has revoked the powers of divisional ward offices to repair water pipelines following large-scale complaints about delays on the part of the ward offices in carrying out the repairs. mr benjamin assured the civic general body on monday that henceforth the work of repairs and maintenance of the waterlines will be directly governed by the civic water department. he was replying to a complaint by bjp corporators ujwala ganjiwale and jyostna sardeshpande that the ward offices often delay the work of repairing the water pipelines saying they are not empowered to undertake such jobs. mr benjamin explained that the work of repairing and maintaining smaller water pipelines, less then six inches in diameter, was to be looked after by the ward offices, while the repairs and maintenance of larger water pipelines should be supervised by the central water department. but with the corporators arguing that often the ward offices and central water department pass the buck, and consequently the work does not get done, the commissioner has now asked the water department to take on the responsibility of maintaining all types of water pipelines. during the meeting, congress corporator anil bhosale complained that the water supply to ashoknagar, bhosalenagar, range hills and parts of shivajinagar was much less since the pmc has started pumping water from the sndt tank to bhusari colony. the general body also approved the resolution to grant a 2.5 floor space index (fsi) for government-aided "a" grade libraries that are more than 100 years old. the times of india had published a special report last month explaining why the city libraries major libraries will not be benefited by the decision. the pune nagar vachan mandir which is more then 100 years old, is not government-aided while the pune marathi granthalaya, which is government aided is 90 years old, and will have to wait for another 10 years to benefit from any additional fsi.