Pune Congress Slams PMC Plan to Spend ₹108 Crore on Privately Managed Civic Schools
Pune Congress Slams PMC Plan to Spend ₹108 Crore on Privately Managed Civic Schools
Pune: The Congress party has strongly opposed a Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) proposal to provide annual funding to the Akanksha Foundation for operating municipal schools, alleging that the move amounts to privatization and commercialization of public education.
Addressing the issue after the Standing Committee meeting, former Mayor and Standing Committee member Prashant Jagtap said the foundation has been managing certain PMC schools free of cost for several years. However, under the new proposal, the civic administration plans to provide nearly ₹12 crore annually to the organization to continue operating these schools.
Jagtap claimed that the proposal would result in an expenditure of around ₹108 crore over the coming years and described it as an unnecessary financial burden on the civic body. He said Congress opposed the proposal during the Standing Committee meeting, arguing that public funds should be used to strengthen municipal schools directly rather than handing over their management to private organizations.
The issue sparked intense debate, leading to a vote in the Standing Committee—the first such voting exercise since the committee was reconstituted five months ago.
According to Jagtap, while opposition parties had already raised objections to allowing private institutions to manage municipal schools, members of the ruling party suggested expanding the model to additional schools. He alleged that if similar arrangements were extended across the PMC’s school network, the financial implications could run into thousands of crores of rupees in the future.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) members Suhas Tingre, Amol Balwadkar and Vaishali Bankar also opposed the proposal. The opposition members maintained that while they fully support the objective of providing quality and free education to all students, they are against transferring the responsibility of municipal schools to private entities.
Congress leaders said the party would continue to oppose any move that, in its view, weakens the public education system or leads to the privatization of civic-run schools.
