Only IAS officers to head municipal corporations, mandates CM

CM Fadnavis plans to appoint only IAS officers as commissioners in Maharashtra's municipal corporations to combat corruption and political interference.

MUMBAI: After the spate of irregularities and corruption cases in the smaller municipal corporations, including those of former Mira-Bhayander commissioner Dilip Dhole and former Vasai-Virar commissioner Anil Pawar, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has directed the urban development department to change the rules so that only IAS officers are appointed as commissioners of the state’s 29 municipal corporations.

One of the incidents behind the decision was the construction of 41 illegal buildings in Vasai in which ex-commissioner Anil Pawar played a key role.

A few years ago, the department of personnel and training (DoPT), governed by the union home ministry, had notified 14 municipal corporations to be headed by IAS-cadre officers, among these Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nagpur, Kolhapur, Kalyan-Dombivali and Vasai-Virar. Despite this diktat, however, the state government has been appointing state cadre or chief officer (CO) cadre officers—in some cases like the Mira Bhayander municipal corporation (MBMC), the officers heading them were not even from the CO cadre. General administration department and urban development department officers said that getting state cadre officers as civic chiefs was easier for local politicians who wanted to control the affairs of the civic body, leading to corruption.

In MBMC, the government had appointed two personal secretaries of former chief minister Eknath Shinde as commissioners. One of them, Dilip Dhole, faced an enforcement directorate probe in a money-laundering case in August 2023. Ex-Vasai-Virar commissioner Anil Pawar, who was arrested by the enforcement directorate for corrupt activities, is a state services officer who was promoted to the IAS cadre—as was Nashik commissioner Kailash Jadhav who has faced allegations of irregularities in the recent past.

“Given this backdrop and rising political interference in the municipal corporations, especially in urban local bodies in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, the CM has decided to appoint IAS officers,” said an official from the general administration department. “Class A and B municipal corporations, including Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Nagpur are mandated to have IAS cadre officers. After Fadnavis took over as the CM, he has started appointing IAS officers to head these municipal corporations. It is true that some of the smaller municipal corporations like Akola, Ahilyanagar and Bhiwandi-Nizampur do not need IAS officers, as the latter are in short supply, but the endeavor will be to have them in most corporations.”

The officer said that the proposal was being prepared by the UDD and would be cleared soon.

Sanjay Pange former BJP corporator from the MBMC who has been pushing for IAS officers to head municipal corporations, said this made a lot of difference. “The DoPT had recommended the appointment of IAS officers to head 14 municipal corporations in the state, but despite this, the government was appointing officers from the CO cadre,” he said. “In some cases such as MBMC, the commissioners were not even from the CO cadre. Their regimes were the most controversial and corruption-riddled. These state services officers are pressured by the political leadership and tend to follow all their orders, resulting in compromising the development of the cities.”