Zagade transferred,Mahesh Pathak civic commissioner

Pathak will be replaced by school education principal secretary Sanjay Kumar,who is incidentally a former commissioner of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). Sumit Mallik,principal secretary and chief protocol officer,will be the new school education secretary.

Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan had promised Pune Mayor Mohan Rajpal Singh that a new municipal commissioner would be appointed soon. Zagade was sent for training at the IAS academy at Mussoorie recently,prompting some local groups to take to the streets saying that he had been shifted out of Pune deliberately by powerful politicians. They had claimed that Zagade had taken on the might of the builder lobby in Pune and was hence sent for training. They had feared that after training,he would not be allowed to return to Pune. The Opposition corporators and even the Congress had been pressing for a full-time commissioner. Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar had clarified that Zagade had gone for training on his own and not forced to go on leave.

The additional charge of PMC commissioner was given to divisional commissioner Dilip Band,who was unwilling to take charge. Band had maintained that he would not take policy decisions though the Congress had said it was not opposed to him.