By Apurva Bhatt

The controversial Sitaram Kunte was on Sunday shunted out of the BMC and was replaced by Ajoy Mehta. Kunte will take over from where Ajoy Mehta left— principal secretary environment department.

Kunte was scheduled to complete his three-year tenure on April 30. An IAS officer of the 1985 batch, Kunte was at the receiving end for inept handling of the row over the city's development plan.  Confirming his appointment, Mehta said that he will take over the charge from Kunte on Monday. "I have received the orders. I will join on Monday,'' Mehta said. 

On his priorities, Mehta said making Mumbai a beautiful city is his top priority. "Mumbai is a city of historical importance. We will have to make all out efforts to make it more beautiful and clean,'' Mehta said. Secondly, more emphasis will have to be given for building up state of the art infrastructure, better roads and better social infrastructure. “We have some of the best hospitals and medical colleges under the BMC. We will have to make stringent efforts to improve the quality of service and better patient care,'' Mehta said. 

Mehta has been credited with drastic changes in the power sector. He was responsible for effective implementation of the surplus power plan for the state. In fact, his action plan to recover arrears from erring consumers was implemented in more than half a dozen states. As an environment secretary, Mehta had fast tracked all the pending cases, as a result, certain projects, which were held for a period ranging between three to five years, were disposed of in a short span of three months.