E-Paper
Daily traffic jams forcing people to move out of Dhanori
For thousands of Dhanori residents, spending long hours in traffic jams on Porwal road has become a daily source of frustration
Fed up of the traffic congestion on Porwal road, Kedar Rathi and his family finally decided to shift from Dhanori to Vishrantwadi last month. Recalling his experience, Rathi, who works in a private firm, said, “We had bought a new, two bedroom-hall-kitchen (BHK) flat in the Dhanori area due to which, we had to go through Porwal road daily. Since buying the new house five years ago, I had to face traffic jams on Porwal road almost daily while going to and returning from the office. Even my son would take two hours to return from school as their school bus would get stuck in traffic.Finally, we decided to shift from Dhanori, and we have now rented another flat in Vishrantwadi last month.”
Rathi isn’t the only one. Priti Singh and her family are currently in the process of shifting home from Porwal road to Tingrenagar road. “We have a joint family. My elder son goes to college, my husband has a government job, and we have elderly persons at home. Since the last one year, we have stopped attending evening functions/festivities at our friends’ and relatives’ homes. During the Ganpati festival, we avoided going out in the evening only because of the heavy traffic jams on Porwal road. Finally, we have bought another flat in the Tingrenagar area and after Diwali next month, we will be shifting there.”
For thousands of Dhanori residents like Rathi and Singh, spending long hours in traffic jams on Porwal road has become a daily source of frustration. Recently, the issue was taken up in the state assembly by local MLA Sunil Tingare and now, many families have started shifting from Dhanori to nearby areas such as Vishrantwadi and Tingrenagar just to avoid the traffic jams on Porwal road.
About the issue, Varun Singh, team member, Lohegaon Residents Welfare Association (LRWA), said, “Since the last many years, we have been fighting for this major issue which has now started impacting the residents’ lives so much that they are moving out from the Dhanori area. Many of them have already shifted from Porwal road and the connecting areas just to avoid the daily traffic jams during morning and evening peak hours.”
“Porwal road is a 10 to 20 feet road used by more than 50,000 residents daily. From 7 am to 9 pm, the traffic situation remains grim. D P road continues to be a work-in-progress. The LRWA has already suggested a short-term solution in the form of a diversion from the Kamlai dairy square, which is a bottleneck towards Orchid hospital. The situation is getting worse. We see that even after paying taxes for the highly underdeveloped Lohegaon area, the people there are feeling cheated by the civic body. There are so many accidents occurring daily and in some cases, ambulances too are not able to reach the hospital in time,” Singh said.
Porwal road starts from the old Octroi chowk on the Dhanori Lohegaon road and ends, connecting to D Y Patil road. On this entire stretch of Porwal road, many new housing societies are coming up, while there are two major high schools as well. So, working people, students and women have to travel through this road on a daily basis. The only other option is to take a 6 km long route going from Lohegaon village.
Rahul Shrirame, deputy commissioner of police (traffic) said, “We are continuously working with the civic authority to give solution to this daily traffic congestion problem at Porwal Road. Soon, this stretch will become a one-way and traffic will subsequently reduce. We have also deployed traffic policemen to monitor vehicular movement during peak hours.”
