The Pune Municipal Corporation’s standing committee on September 17 approved Rs 17.09 crore to put 500 traffic wardens at 250 of the city’s busiest junctions for one year. The civic administration will award the work without a tender, using the emergency provision in Section 67(3) of the Maharashtra Municipal Corporations Act, according to Punekar News and The Karbhari. Standing committee chairman Shrinath Bhimale cleared the proposal.
How the junction plan works
The request came from Pune traffic police, who asked the civic body for extra manpower after a joint meeting on August 14. Mayor Manjusha Nagpure then directed the administration to appoint wardens, Punekar News reported. Police picked 242 junctions, each to get two wardens working alongside one police staffer. Eight more junctions get 16 wardens between them. That adds up to the 500 posts.
Neither report says the wardens will carry any power to fine motorists. The plan pairs them with a police staffer at each junction, which suggests challans stay with the constable while wardens manage the flow of vehicles.
Similar cost per head, no competitive bid
PMC had earlier prepared a tender for 316 wardens at Rs 10.50 crore, scheduled to go out between September 11 and 16. The administration halted it before publication, and Punekar News reported concerns that the direct route could hand the work to a particular contractor. The administration’s stated reason is the time a fresh tender would take.
Run the numbers and the per-head cost stays close. The cancelled tender worked out to about Rs 3.32 lakh per warden a year. The approved plan comes to about Rs 3.42 lakh, or roughly Rs 28,500 a month, around 3% more. The city now gets 184 extra wardens, and in exchange it gives up competitive bidding on a Rs 17 crore, one-year contract.
That monthly figure sits close to another rate PMC approved at the same meeting. The committee cleared 500 more multipurpose security workers at Rs 28,222 a month each, taking the civic security contract workforce from 1,915 to 2,415 at a cost of Rs 136.31 crore over 20 months, The Karbhari reported. Punekar News said the wardens will come through the civic security department. The Karbhari also noted that only 255 of PMC’s 666 sanctioned permanent guard posts are filled, with 411 vacant because of state curbs on Class IV hiring since 2012. Those vacancies leave PMC relying on contract staff for guards and, now, junction duty.
What it means for commuters
- More hands at choke points: Two wardens plus a constable at 242 junctions gives police a presence they rarely manage today at peak hours.
- No public junction list yet: Neither report names the 250 junctions beyond eight in the Bavdhan area. Residents can ask their ward office or traffic division which crossings in their area made the cut.
- A one-year horizon: The approval covers 12 months. After that, PMC will need a fresh decision, and ideally a tender.
The funding gap
Punekar News reported that the relevant budget head holds only Rs 1.70 crore against the Rs 17.09 crore cost, leaving about Rs 15.39 crore to find. PMC will have to move money from another head or add a supplementary provision, and neither report says which. Watch for that reallocation at a coming standing committee or general body meeting, along with the name of the agency that gets the contract and the date wardens first appear at junctions.
Sources: Punekar News, The Karbhari
This report was written with AI assistance from the publicly reported sources linked here; each fact was cross-checked against at least two of them.