The civic body had organised a trekking at Rajgad Fort on Thursday to review the project undertaken to maintain historical monuments — PMC had invested Rs 50 lakh in the project. But none of the corporators turned up owing to Shivratri, thus giving a major set-back to the Commissioner’s initiative.

“There is a need to bridge the gap between elected representatives and civic staff.

The more the corporators and civic staff understand each other, better will be their quality of work,” Pardeshi said.

A similar effort involving the standing committee members and the civic administration last month had turned successful when the 16-member committee participated in the trek at Rajmachi.

Even though, the elected representatives failed to show up at Rajgad, Pardeshi did not miss the opportunity to inculcate team building skills among the civic staff who joined him.

The informal gathering helped many officers to share the problems they faced while on duty.

“We are too caught up in the meetings and hardly get any time to carry out work,” PMC Garden Superintendent Yashwant Khaire pointed out.

The Commissioner said,”I can understand the time consumed in the meetings. I will personally look into matter and reduce the number of meetings from next week onwards.”

PMC Octroi chief K C Karkar said the compulsory attendance of civic officers in the general body meetings also wastes time of officers.

Pardeshi said the department heads should urge ward officers to handle the matters at the local level instead of taking them to the department head of the commissioner’s office.