E-Paper
PMC halts road digging after complaints
Pune Municipal Corporation halted road work for a CCTV project due to contractor violations, citing safety concerns and lack of compliance with conditions.
PUNE: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Wednesday issued a stop-work notice to the contractor handling road digging for the state home ministry’s citywide CCTV installation project, citing repeated violations of agreed terms and conditions.
Under the CCTV project, Pune police are laying cables across the city, with most work concentrated in central areas. However, the contractor has been digging up footpaths and roads indiscriminately and without basic safety measures such as warning boards or proper barricades. Citizens have been filing complaints, and PMC had earlier issued a warning to the contractor.
With complaints rising again, PMC ordered the contractor to halt all work and first submit a reinstatement plan.
PMC’s road department head, Aniruddha Pawaskar, said, “We had permitted road digging with clear conditions. The contractor was asked to dig only 500 metres at a time, reinstate that stretch, and then proceed. They were also instructed to display boards for public information. None of these conditions were followed. We have now asked the contractor to reinstate all roads properly before any further work can begin.”
Large parts of central Pune have been dug up for this and other ongoing works. PMC had earlier directed the same contractor to restrict digging only to authorised stretches, but the instruction was ignored as roads across the city were excavated without permission.
