Court cases hinder Chandani Chowk improvement works

In spite of promising to finish the land acquisition for Chandni Chowk flyover in two weeks, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is unable to acquire the necessary land due to the ongoing court cases

In spite of promising to finish the land acquisition for Chandni Chowk flyover in two weeks, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is unable to acquire the necessary land due to the ongoing court cases.

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Union minister of road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari visited Chandni Chowk to review the much-delayed work and instructed the administration to speed up the land acquisition work.

The PMC needs to acquire three buildings, around 5,000 sq ft land of Ved bhavan and one more property but as the case is pending in the court, the matter has not been sorted out.

PMC estate department head Rajendra Muthe said, “The case is pending in the high court. Three flat holders went in the court and denied the compensation. Rest all the flat owners accepted the compensation but as three members from three different buildings did not accept it, the land acquisition process remained incomplete.”

PMC engineer Rajiv Thorat said, “The PMC filed a review petition in the high court for getting the possession earlier. The Ved bhavan also went to court, the government had given the land to this institute. It was a written clause that whenever needed, the Ved bhavan would return the land to the government, but they too went to court. The PMC requires the land for the multilevel flyover.”

All the properties are on Sringeri Math road.

Considering the heavy traffic in the area and a busy junction where city’s traffic mixes with the highway traffic, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) stepped in to solve the traffic issues and complete the project.

The PMC is providing land for this project; the state government has given the land acquisition cost to the PMC.

The Chandni Chowk flyover work got much delayed due to land acquisition issue. Though the project got an approval almost three years ago, it is getting halted due to the land acquisition issue. The defense had given a nod to hand over the required land for this project.

A PMC official said that the work of flyover is in progress.

“Though these properties are not in the possession, it is not halting the work,” he said.