Pune Municipal Corporation joins 23 merged villages with ward offices

As many as 23 newly merged villages in Pune will be attached to eight ward offices of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) for administration coordination. With the merger of the villages, Pune officially became the city with the largest geographical area of 516.18 sq km in Maharashtra. The state government had issued an order to include 23 new villages in the existing city limits by extending the boundaries of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). The nearest ward office is chosen for every village to decrease the trouble for the citizens to reach there. Pune civic officials told the media that the merged villages are distant from the PMC headquarters in Shivajinagar. People living in those areas would be able to get civic-related tasks done at the ward offices. The ward offices act as an extended part of the civic administration. Many of them have citizen facilitation centres. Different types of work related to registration marriages, paying property tax, and water tankers can be done there. Several municipal approvals, including permission to building plans, can be obtained from these ward offices. A senior official told the media that the power to take administrative decisions has been assigned to the PMC from Gram Panchayats. The workforce in the civic administration will be increased to manage the extra work of these villages. Image Source Also read: Pune is now a city with the largest geographical area in India