Pune: At a time when the rapid decline of green cover in the city has sparked outrage among residents and activists, it has emerged that the PMC’s garden department is facing a whopping 90% vacancy rate in key field positions at present. This has affected both daily maintenance of civic green spaces as well as regulatory oversight.Data available with the civic body revealed that seven out of eight garden inspector posts and 29 out of 33 mistry (supervisor) posts are currently vacant.Activist Vivek Velankar of Sajag Nagrik Manch, a citizens’ group, told TOI, “The staff deficit has slowed down planting of native trees to increase urban green cover, scientific trimming of tree crowns to prevent fall-induced damage, and removal of hazardous branches.” Many of these tasks are of added importance during the annual monsoon season.Under Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), mandated duties of a garden inspector include regular inspections of gardens, trees, roadside green patches and playgrounds. They are responsible for allocating tasks to gardeners and mistries, overseeing tree plantation, pruning, water supply, fertiliser management and pest control. Additionally, they monitor garden cleanliness, infrastructure maintenance, staff attendance and citizen complaints, while ensuring that tree felling and transplantation follow municipal regulations.The civic administration has also defined duties for the post of mistry, who are required to directly supervise field work and manage workers based on the instructions of the garden inspectors.According to Velankar, due to the shortage of these supervisory cadres, several key official tasks are being neglected now, such as checking illegal tree felling, redressing civic complaints regarding green cover, and monitoring mandatory compensatory tree plantation and nurturing after authorised felling.Environmental experts emphasised that this recruitment process needs to be carried out on a priority basis. “The civic areas are expanding, and so is the need for garden staff. In fact, not only should the existing vacancies be filled, but additional manpower should also be added,” said Vaishali Patkar, an environmentalist and social worker.Asked about the vacancies, PMC garden department head Ashok Ghorpade told TOI, “We are in the process of filling the vacancies. The recruitment process will be completed at the earliest.”
