Pune rural police fail to distribute Rs19.35 crore prize money

The apparent lack of a ‘suitable politician’ willing to distribute the award money, for the dispute-free village scheme, has prevented the Pune rural police from distributing the Rs19.35 crore prize money amongst the 788 dispute-free villages in the district.

Although, the minister of state for home, Satej Patil, confirmed to DNA, that he had instructed the superintendent of police to distribute the prize money, insiders in the Pune Rural police, affirmed that the real reason for the delay was the want of a ‘suitable politician’ to preside over the function.

With the election fever raging high in view of the impending elections for the various local self governance bodies in the district, it seems, the politicians do not have time to attend the above function.

On November 2, superintendent of police Pune Rural SS Solunke had told DNA, “I have recently taken charge of the district. I don’t have an idea about what has been done by previous officers. But I have already given instructions to our officer to distribute the money in the next week.’’

But Solunke apparently was lax when it came to keeping his promise. Repeated efforts to contact Solunke was futile as he did not respond to DNA’s calls.

DNA had reported how the Mahatma Gandhi dispute-free village scheme which was the dream project of state home minister RR Patil, was dying a slow death in Pune district, thanks to the neglect meted to it by the rural police.  The rural police have appointed only two cops to implement the scheme across the entire district.

In 2010, as many as 788 out of 1,134 villages in Pune district were declared dispute-free. Pleased with its achievement, the state government declared Rs19.35 crore as prize money, which was supposed to be distributed equally among the villages. There were over 37,000 disputes in these 788 hamlets in 2010.

These included 2,862 civil disputes, 2,050 revenue, 29,675 criminal and 2,677 other disputes, which the villagers resolved amicably without the intervention of the law-enforcing agencies.

This initiative was lauded by the United Nations for its innovativeness and its applicability in 2007.

The other districts of the state have distributed money. The Pune rural police have given the election code of conduct and Maval firing as reasons for the delay in distributing money.