Expressing concern over the deteriorating environment scenario of Pune, majority of the corporators in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Wednesday demanded to stop the farce of publishing Environment Status Report (ESR) every year, if nothing concrete was going to happen to really save the environment. The ESR-2007-08 came for discussion before the general body meeting. The corporators also brought the absence of civic officials and municipal commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi during the meeting.

BJP corporator Anil Shirole said, “The status report on environment is published every year, but there is hardly anything that comes out of it. The civic body hardly cares to implement the suggestions given in it.”

He added, “Under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), the union government has started assisting the cities to help themselves renovate. However, as far as the removal of the slums, there should have been a master plan and a time-bound programme.”

Criticising, among other things, the garbage disposal situation in the city, Ujjwal Keskar said, “It has been found that even after segregating the dry and wet garbage in some select localities in the city, this collected garbage again dumped together. It only shows that the civic administration is not serious about the issue.”

Avinash Bagwe and Avinash Salve, both of Congress said that despite being an important issue, the topic of environment comes for discussion only for one day in the whole year. “Therefore, this farce of publishing the ESRs should be stopped immediately,” they said.

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