Punjab removes Mohali Municipal Corporation commissioner

The Punjab government on Thursday removed Mohali Municipal Corporation Commissioner Parminder Pal Singh from his post, ending a tenure marked by mounting public complaints and an administration widely seen as unresponsive to citizen grievances.

Sundeep Singh Garha, a 2012-batch Punjab Civil Service (PCS) officer, has been appointed the new MC Commissioner for Mohali. Garha was until recently posted as Joint Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, with an additional charge as Additional Director of the Information and Public Relations Department.

In an order issued by Chief Secretary KAP Sinha, Parminder, a 2016-batch IAS officer, has been stripped of all charges he held and directed to report to the Secretary, Personnel, until further orders — effectively left without a posting.

The writing had been on the wall for some time. A government functionary told The Tribune that the state had received a stream of complaints against Parminder over an extended period and had even warned him to improve his working style. Those warnings, it turns out, fell on deaf ears.

"The continued lack of responsiveness and ineffective grievance redressal mechanism under his leadership has eroded public confidence and warranted an objective administrative review," the functionary said.

Despite the official caution, the situation did not improve, leaving the government with little choice but to act.

The reshuffle carries added significance. Mohali is set to host the high-profile Invest Punjab Summit from March 13 to 15 — a flagship event for the state government to showcase Punjab as an investment destination. With the summit barely days away, the administration was in no position to leave the city's top civic post in hands deemed ineffective.

Parminder's removal is part of a broader administrative overhaul. Thursday's reshuffle saw five officers — two IAS and three PCS — reassigned by the state government.