mumbai

Updated: Feb 09, 2018 09:11 IST

Tukaram Mundhe, 43, who was serving as the chairman and managing director of Pune Municipal Transport Corporation Limited has now been posted as the municipal commissioner of Nashik.

Usually, the tenure of a government officer is three years. This is Mundhe’s third transfer order in the past four years.

The transfer comes just 11 months after he was shifted from the post of Navi Mumbai municipal commissioner. Mundhe, who was the district collector of Solapur, was appointed to the post in Navi Mumbai in May 2016. In Solapur, Mundhe had cracked down on officials involved in the irrigation scam. He had also taken on the local sand mafia, owing to which he was attacked in January 2016, but escaped unhurt. He was shunted out of Solapur in 17 months owing to pressure from politicians, sources said.

The CM transferred Mundhe from Navi Mumbai, owing to pressure from local politicians and corporators. The elected representatives in Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) had even passed a no-confidence resolution for his removal, which the state had suspended. While politicians attributed his transfer to “arbitrary decisions and disrespecting other civic officers”, citizens in Navi Mumbai protested against it. The residents had appreciated Mundhe’s work against illegal constructions and corruption in the civic body.

“The government has to decide on all this [frequent transfers and the allegations against him]. I think I have got a bigger opportunity. I am going to Nashik and will join soon,” Mundhe said, in response to his fresh transfer order.

Mundhe, an IAS officer from the 2005 batch, faced similar problems with politicians during his tenure in Nagpur. He is said to have been transferred 10 times in the past 10 years. When asked, Mundhe said, “I don’t count my transfers.”

James John, a coordinator with The Action for Good Governance and Networking in India (AGNI), an NGO working for accountability in governance, said, “You have to listen to your master only when you have to do something wrong. He must not have been ready to do it, which is why he is being thrown out.”

Brijesh Misra, a social worker from Navi Mumbai, who protested against Mundhe’s transfer from Navi Mumbai, said, “Mundhe was doing really good work but got transferred as some politicians were not happy with him. We protested against that government decision. This is disappointing that he has been transferred again.”