E-Paper
Panchavati-Kothrud-Gokhale nagar tunnel gains momentum
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has received a response in the re-tender of the ambitious project of Pashan-Panchavati-Kothrud which was announced in 2017 to ease the traffic problem of Paud road, Senapati Bapat road and Shivajinagar area
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has received a response in the re-tender of the ambitious project of Pashan-Panchavati-Kothrud which was announced in 2017 to ease the traffic problem of Paud road, Senapati Bapat road and Shivajinagar area. Now, the PMC has initiated the process of appointment of consultant.
In a recent meeting, deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar has given instructions to speed up the work of the project.
Earlier, the contractor failed to submit a feasibility report of the project. After that, PMC carried out the retender process and they received responses from contractors.
On Saturday, a meeting was held between Pawar and mayor Murlidhar Mohol to review the tunnel work and speed up the work. MLA Siddharth Shirole, municipal commissioner Vikram Kumar, city engineer Prashant Waghmare, chief engineer Srinivas Bona were present for the meeting.
Mohol said, “The current distance from Kothrud to Pashan is eight and a half kilometres via Chandni Chowk and the same distance is nine and a half kilometres via Senapati Bapat road. When the tunnel is completed, the distance will be four kilometres. The distance from Pashan road to Gokhalenagar is four and a half kilometres and after the tunnelling, the same distance will be 2.9 kilometres. The length of Kothrud to Panchavati tunnel is 1,090 meters and the length of Panchavati to Gokhalenagar tunnel is 580 meters. Traffic congestion in the area will definitely be reduced after the completion of these tunnels.”
He further said, “A consultant was appointed for this work. However, due to untimely completion of the work, the process of changing the consultant has been started. The consultant change process has received a response and a consultant has been appointed after discussion. Therefore, government permits for the work of these two tunnels will be obtained immediately.”
Indrabhan Randive, executive engineer of the project department said, “After rendering, four consultants approached PMC. Of that, two consultants were finalised. One consultant has quoted a rate of 3.38 per cent consultancy fee which is more than as per state government ( two per cent consultancy) . We have given a letter to the consultant to reduce the consultant fee.”
“After finalizing the consultant, he will have to conduct a topographical survey and aerial survey. At present, we got NOC from central and state government agencies such as Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE), National Chemical laboratory (NCL), forest department, Automatic Research Association of India (ARAI),” he added.
