“Even after getting clearances some of the major milestones have not been achieved by PMC. They are lagging behind mainly in BRTS implementation. This is a critical area for PMC, with the Commonwealth Youth Games to be held in October 2008. With eight months to go, many of the benchmarks set under JNNURM are not been met by the PMC,’’ said an officer.

This is for the second month running that PMC has scored low and failed the minimum required 50 per cent marks. While it had managed only 37 per cent and F categorisation in November, the civic body’s performance has slipped further in December, at 30 per cent, also an F.

Municipal commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi attributed the poor scores to the delay in getting approvals from the standing committee of PMC. “The poor scorecard is because the work orders of development projects were approved by the standing committee only recently. Had they been approved four months back, we would have already started working upon them and hence we are bound to get poor score for the next two months. Even though the development work has taken off late, we will definitely complete them before the Commonwealth Youth Game begins,” he said.

PMC is the only municipal corporation out of the seven in the state that have sought JNNURM funds — Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Mumbai, Thane, Nagpur, Nashik and Nanded — to have scored below 50 per cent during the last two months. However, PMC has been able to meet some of the deadlines in the areas of sewage treatment and river improvement.

Meanwhile, the neighbouring Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation has fared much better in the last two months. “We have managed to get the second position, although it was really difficult to achieve the targets. It was difficult to get the funds sanctioned and even harder to show the progress as per the expectations of the central government,” said Pimpri-Chinchwad commissioner Dilip Band. PCMC only slipped once in the month of September where it got a C categorisation.