PMC video-conferencing facility to be discontinued

The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) will not be able to hold meetings with its ward offices through video-conferencing now as the central processing unit of the system located at Mantralaya was destroyed in the Thursday fire.

"PMC was the first civic body to install video conference facility at all its 14 ward offices and civic headquarters. Its connection with the central process unit (main server) in Mantralaya enabled all ward offices to get connected to Mantralaya or any other video-conferencing at district administration office across the city," said Ganesh Sonune of PMC's disaster management department.

He said the damage to the control room at the Mantralaya has affected the facility as the PMC cannot get connected to any other district or Mantralaya. The facility further enabled the civic chief to get all the 14 ward offices connected simultaneously with the help of centralised process unit at Mantralaya, Sonune said. "The video conferencing facility can now only be used for one-to-one communication instead of connecting all offices simultaneously."

Using the facility, the Pune municipal chief had started holding meetings of all ward offices through video conferencing in order to save time that was wasted in travelling to all ward offices. However, to avoid dependence on the central processing unit at Mantralaya for multi-location conferencing, the PMC had decided to come up with its own central processing unit. "The estimated cost of the system is Rs 1 crore and the PMC has already sent a proposal to the state government for approval," Sonune added.

"The facility had helped us save time that we wasted in travelling to ward offices. The meetings for monsoon preparedness and implementation of directives to repair footpaths was conducted through video-conferencing," said Madhav Jagtap, assistant municipal commissioner, Hadapsar ward office.

Assistant municipal commissioner Arun Khilari said the jurisdiction under his Vishrambaugwada-Kasba ward office has maximum civic issues compared to other ward offices.

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