Dinesh Kamath's news 'Tukaram Mundhe transferred at last, city residents greatly disappointed; N Ramaswamy named the new Municipal Commissioner' that was published in Newsband

Tukaram Mundhe transferred at last, city residents greatly disappointed

N Ramaswamy named the new Municipal Commissioner

By Dinesh Kamath

Above Tukaram Mundhe

NAVI MUMBAI: Another honest bureaucrat got penalized for his honesty. The former Navi Mumbai Municipal Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe was transferred by the Maharashtra government, thus bowing down to the strong opposition against him displayed by the political parties. This is the price he had to pay for sticking strictly to the written laws. The government has yet to make clear the next posting of Mundhe.

Majority of the Corporators in Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation had voted against Mundhe during the no-confidence motion against Mundhe. But Mundhe was favoured by both the state government and Chief Minister owing to his clean record.

Getting transferred is not something new for Mundhe who has so far faced transfer eight times during his career. This is his ninth one. He is the man who had managed to get through Indian Administrative Services examination in spite of belonging to an extremely backward region of Maharashtra.

Mundhe is the man who has to his record the feat of having taken action against 1916 illegal hawkers, 1808 hutments and 1010 political hoardings during his short tenure in NMM. He was also responsible for suspending ten officials for shirking their duties. He straightaway cancelled unnecessary multi-crore projects and diverted these funds for better purposes. He was severely criticized for the kind of demolitions he conducted in gaothan area. He had even gone to the extent of dismissing two Shiv Sena corporators whom he suspected to have been involved in illegal constructions.   

Although Mundhe was hated in the political circle, he was extremely loved by the city residents for whose welfare he would conduct event called ‘Walk With the Commissioner’. The city residents found him very friendly and cooperative and one who not only understood their problems but worked sincerely to solve those problems.

All these exploits of Mundhe led Corporators from the ruling NCP and Opposition Shiv Sena to join hands and pass the motion 105 to 6. They called him autocratic and impolite. Mayor of Navi Mumbai Sudhakar Sonawane was totally against Mundhe and he had even threatened to resign if Mundhe was not transferred. He even met both the CM and Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray.

But Mundhe’s clean record was a plus point in his favour. In spite of massive opposition in the political circle, the support that he got from city residents made the CM hesitate to take any kind of action against him after he had lost the confidence of the corporators very badly. But at last CM too had to give in to the wishes of the corporators and issue the transfer order of Mundhe.

Mundhe never showed any sign of fear even after no-confidence motion was passed against him. He was used to such opposition which he had faced in the past too in the regions where he was serving. He is the man who had not hesitated to take on even the sand and land mafias in the past place of works. His reputation as an honest man has still remained untarnished in spite of all kinds of allegations made against him by politicians.  

Thus Mundhe’s tenure in NMMC has lasted less than a year. N Ramaswami, inspector general of registration and controller of stamps, has been named the new commissioner.