E-Paper
Activists object to PMC’s DRP on Balbharati-Paud Link Road uploaded on website
This is not the final report. The DPR has been prepared to get an idea of the whole project. Changes will be made when required as the traffic scenario changes every year, says official
The much-discussed Balbharati-Paud Link Road has taken another turn after the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) shared a detailed project report (DPR), traffic survey and Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report on its website on May 10. Civic activists have raised objections to this report, stating that the decision to construct the road, was made long before the reports were ready.
Sushma Date, member of Deccan Gymkhana Parisar Samiti said, “It appears as if neither the consultants, nor PMC take technical reports seriously. The decision to construct the road was made long before the reports were ready. Environment Impact Assessment and Traffic survey were approved in July 2021, the construction of Balbharati-Paud Link Road was approved in August 2021 and DPR was approved in December 2022. The changes in the documents are suspicious. We received all documents under Right to Information (RTI), so we could easily spot the changes.”
“There are changes in alignment of roads that we got via RTI in December 2022 and the one in the uploaded DPR. The change in Survey 44 has yet to be approved by building department, municipal commissioner and state government, yet it has blatantly been shown on the website, she added.
A senior official from the road department requesting anonymity said, “We have uploaded a draft report. This is not the final report. The DPR has been prepared to get an idea of the whole project. Changes will be made when required as the traffic scenario changes every year. There may be typo errors, however, it does not mean that the entire report is incorrect.We changed the alignment in survey number 44 to minimise the rehabilitation cost.”
Ujjwal Keskar, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said, “PMC should upload all reports. If activists already had access to reports via RTI, they should have put them up on their websites. The PMC and civic activists do not trust each other.”
In traffic report, PMC has mentioned that some measures can be taken to temporarily reduce the congestion on existing Law College Road such as creating No-Parking zones on the main road and allowing vehicles to park on Bhandarkar and Prabhat Roads on alternate days or declare Law College Road as one-way, with the return from Pashan Road or Kothrud-Pashan tunnel (yet to be constructed). These would be short-term measures.
PMC insists that the proposed Balbharati-Paud Link Road is much-needed to decongest traffic on Law College Road.
