The Pune Municipal Corporation has issued notices and recovered more than Rs 6.25 lakh in fines from contractors accused of failing to maintain road cleanliness, as the civic administration begins enforcing a performance-based sweeping system across the city.
The action followed inspections that found accumulated waste at work sites, repeated garbage hotspots left uncleared and sweeping staff absent from their assigned areas. The PMC has said six contractors were issued notices during the initial phase of the enforcement drive. The reported action forms part of a three-month pilot project intended to improve the quality of road sweeping through closer field-level monitoring.
Under the pilot, sweeping work in the areas covered by different PMC ward offices has been assigned to separate contractors. Officials are checking the quality of work directly at locations rather than relying only on contractor reporting. Additional Municipal Commissioner Prajit Nair has also inspected some areas, according to the report.
The largest penalty reported so far involves LVG Facilities India Pvt. Ltd., which was responsible for sweeping work carried out by 325 workers in the Bibwewadi ward office area and 275 workers in the Wanawadi-Ramtekdi area. After two months of work that officials found below expectations, the company was fined Rs 1,000 per worker. The penalties amounted to Rs 3.25 lakh for the Bibwewadi workforce and Rs 2.75 lakh for the Wanawadi-Ramtekdi workforce, taking the total to Rs 6 lakh.
A further penalty of Rs 20,000 was imposed on Lokrajya Self-Employment Service Cooperative Society after shortcomings were found in the work of 20 employees under the Kothrud-Bavdhan ward office. The report also named Priyank Enterprises, Prime Avenue, Sumit Facilities Ltd., Siddhivinayak Enterprises and Global Waste Management Cell Pvt. Ltd. among the contractors issued notices during the initial stage of the action.
The revised enforcement mechanism changes the financial consequence for poor performance. Santosh Warule, deputy commissioner of the PMC’s solid waste management department, said contractors were earlier generally issued notices and that one company had previously been fined Rs 5,000. The civic body has now begun applying a penalty of Rs 1,000 for each worker linked to deficient work.
Warule said the administration had recorded a 50% improvement in sweeping work after the action. The claim is based on the PMC’s internal assessment, while the report does not provide the inspection methodology, baseline cleanliness measurements or ward-wise comparison behind the figure.
The PMC has said surprise inspections will continue and that further action will be taken if shortcomings are found. The three-month pilot will therefore test whether worker-linked penalties and direct field inspections can produce consistent improvements beyond a short-term response to enforcement.
