A committee member of the tree authority of the BMC has alleged lack of transparency, as well as dereliction of duty by the concerned authority due to which the work of tree census has been delayed. Kamlesh Shah, member of the committee, said that the tree census work was due and the process was on from the last four months for the BMC. He added that the civic body recently decided to go for re-tendering as only two bidders had applied for the job of conducting the census. As one vendor was blacklisted by the Pune Municipal Corporation, he was evicted, but the second vendor who fulfilled all the terms and conditions of the tendering process, was denied the contract and BMC went for a fresh tender. “I firmly believe this is a classic case of lack of transparency in the bidding process and the administration is not providing a level playing field to all vendors. It is an injustice to a genuine vendor,” said Mr Shah. He further pointed out that despite writing to the municipal commissioner, as well as discussing the suggestion of discontinuing the use of paper for administrative work, the civic corporation had failed to respond to the environment-friendly way of working. “Our aim and intention is to save paper and take a step towards e-governance. By having e-meetings, the administration can save about 25,000 pages per annum,” said Mr Shah. When asked about the allegations by Mr Shah, S.S. Shinde, AMC (tree department) said that there was no delay in the tree census. “The work of tree census has to be done every five years and we have not overshot the deadline. While the earlier tendering process was cancelled, the new process is in progress and the census will be out very soon,” said Mr Shinde. He added that the BMC was always looking to save trees.
