STP

PMC

Devgekar

Shriniwas Kandul

CERC

The Pune Municipal Corporation () doesn’t practice what it preaches, it seems. On one hand, it single-mindedly takes action against unauthorised constructions across the city while on the other, it sets up a transformer at a sewage treatment plant (STP) without the required permission from the electrical inspector’s office. The civic body was slapped with a show-cause notice by electrical inspector Son Thursday, for installing the transformer at the STP plant in Mundhwa.The notice, signed by Devgekar, states that officials from the department had carried out an inspection at the Mundhwa plant on Tuesday, in which they found that its 1,000 KVA transformer has been made operational without taking prior permission from the electrical inspector. The notice also mentions that it can pose a lot of dangers owing to the faulty way the transformer has been set up.Caught on the wrong foot,, head of PMC’s electricity department, said in defence, “It is very harsh on the part of the electricity inspector’s office to state that the set-up is dangerous. We are also a government agency and know very well how to follow norms. We will be giving a fitting reply to the notice, in which we will ask them on what basis they are calling the setup dangerous.”The notice also mentions that the norms stated in the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission () have not been followed while making the transformer operational. Hence, the civic administration will have to file its reply to the department within 15 day of receipt of the notice, failing which, the electrical inspector’s office will take further legal action.The delayed project of the STP plant in Mundhwa has begun only recently, where PMC is expected to treat nearly 6.5 TMC of water annually. So, the transformer was installed not long ago, but has been surrounded by controversy ever since the showcause notice.When Kandul was asked if permission was taken before making the transformer operational, he said, “Earlier, we had a different transformer of high capacity due to which we were incurring steeper electricity bills. The PMC was facing an additional expenditure of Rs 25,000 per month. So, we changed the transformer from a higher capacity to a lower capacity. It is not a new transformer, but was shifted from our Kasba Peth office to the STP. We will be taking approval from the electrical inspector soon.”