When will the Public Health Department of MCGM get a full-time deputy commissioner?

Numbers of Covid -19 patients are shooting up new heights in Mumbai day-to-day and unfortunately Department of Public Health of MCGM does not have a competent system to admit, treat such patients timely and provide timely information to patients and their relatives. This has raised a question mark on the image and efficiency of the country's richest municipal corporation known as BMC. In such a critical situation, the Department of Public Health of BMC still has only one part-time Deputy Municipal Commissioner and no one knows when  this department will get a full-time deputy municipal commissioner? RTI activist Anil Galgali, who has exposed several irregularities in the BMC through his RTI queries, has raised this question.

In a letter written by RTI Galgali to Chief Minister Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray, Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta and BMC Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, has pointed out that the state government has sent not one but a pool of seven IAS officers to the health department. A total of 11 IAS officers are presently working in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, in which 1 Commissioner, 2 Additional Commissioners and 1 Joint Commissioner are posted. But, unfortunately, there is not even a single full-time deputy commissioner in the Public Health department, which ideally should have. 

Anil Galgali further said that at present, the Deputy Municipal Commissioner of Public Health, who has been given the charge of the Department of Public Health, is the full-time Deputy Municipal Commissioner of the Department of Improvement. This means that the state government, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation itself is ignoring the public health department, otherwise a full-time deputy Municipal commissioner would have been appointed to handle the Public Health Department.

Anil Galgali has appealed to the chief minister and chief secretary and newly appointed BMC commissioner to give utmost importance to the Public Health Department by posting a full-time deputy municipal commissioner.