PUNE, 23 December 2005 — Bad relations with the media have tainted the image of the police in this city. The image is made even worse by the attitude of the top brass, who turn a blind eye to the way the media is treated by lower officers.
The pressroom is suffocating. Nothing has changed in the past 30 years there even whole the rest of the building has been renovated. Faulty telephones in the pressroom do not get replaced.
Forget about their being repaired, despite the several complaints from 40 scribes from the electronic and print media. Even clean drinking water is not available. The tables are in shambles, and the dim lights tell a sorry tale. “Pathetic, disgusting, undisciplined and irresponsible is how the Pune police work,” said a senior reporter of a leading Marathi daily.
When Arab News brought this to the notice of Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, he admitted that this attitude had to change and the media hadto be given the best treatment. “I will visit the press room and find out the ground situation myself soon,” he said.
In the past it was customary for the police commissioner to visit the pressroom and interact with the media, but for the past two years, the scribes allege, the police commissioner has not even once entered the room. Information is not forthcoming even from the press relations officers.
Warning to Bureaucrats
Deshmukh also issued a stern warning to the state bureaucracy that serious action would be taken against them if they failed to utilize the development funds granted by the federal government by the end of the financial year 2006. “Take serious note that every bureaucrat from every department would be held accountable and responsible if they fail to utilize the development fund,” Deshmukh told a gathering of the state bureaucrats.
The chief minister had since yesterday started analyzing the non-utilization of the federal grant allocation for development purposes by various state government departments. During a meeting with the secretaries on Wednesday evening, the chief minister expressed his displeasure and disappointment with the bureaucracy over their slackness and negligence of spending the federal development grant, and he took the secretaries to task. This morning too the chief minister called the meeting of the secretaries to review the progress of many pending projects.
Meanwhile, Congress President Sonia Gandhi who had canceled her two-day visit to Pune and Bombay scheduled on Dec. 20 and 21 due to the demise of federal Power Minister P.M. Sayeed, is now expected to pay a one-day visit to both the cities on Dec. 28, according to reliable Congress sources.
