AAP Pune demands immediate removal of signboards

Aam Aadmi Party demands removal of Courtesy (सौजन्य) and Concept (संकल्पना) signboards of the Corporators of Pune Municipal Corporation.

Pune : Under the garb of “Courtesy” and “Concept”, several lakh signboards, bearing names of local corporators have been unnecessarily affixed at public facilities provided by the Pune Municipal Corporation.

All these signboards, for which public funds have been used, are often displayed at public facilities like gardens, flyovers, community centres, markets, fire stations etc. These signboards are displayed even in places like cemeteries and public toilets. These signboards with names of corporators on them are fully public property and hence claiming such facilities and putting individual corporators’ names is illegal. This is an outright act of encroachment on public property.

“The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) elections will be declared soon & according to the Code of Conduct of the Election Commission, the Corporation will have to spend hundreds of crores of rupees unnecessarily to cover such signboards. Moreover, this activity of covering the signboards is carried out during every Municipal Corporation, Lok Sabha and Assembly election. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has questioned the PMC administration that for how long will the administration turn a blind eye to such blatant encroachments and also squander public money on covering these billboards, ” informed Dr Abhijit More, AAP Spokesperson, Pune city.

Aam Aadmi Party’s Maharashtra State Organizer and Pune’s Working President, Vijay Kumbhar has demanded that the Pune Municipal Commissioner should permanently remove all these illegal “Courtesy” (सौजन्य) and “Concept” (संकल्पना) signboards bearing corporator names and the cost of such an exercise should be recovered from those individual corporators. In the meantime, for forthcoming PMC elections, the cost of covering all such signboards should also be recovered from the corporators. In case the corporators are unwilling to pay from their pockets, the Pune Municipal Commissioner should coordinate with Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) and ensure that all such costs are included in their respective election expenses.