PMC to build cycle track on Pashan road

Three years after the then Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) commissioner, Saurabh Rao’s nine-year-old-son, met with an accident while riding his bicycle on the Pashan road, the PMC has taken a decision to build a cycle track on this road

Three years after the then Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) commissioner, Saurabh Rao’s nine-year-old-son, met with an accident while riding his bicycle on the Pashan road, the PMC has taken a decision to build a cycle track on this road.

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The PMC standing committee approved ₹1.4 lakh to develop a 2.5km cycle track from the University chowk to the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) gate.

Under the central government’s National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), the PMC got ₹9.45 crore to initiate different works, such as creating a green buffer, cycle track development, sprinklers, and public awareness activity.

Dinkar Gojare, superintendent engineer of the PMC’s road department, said, “There is no cycle track on Pashan road. There was an issue of trees along the roadside. It is a 2.5km stretch which starts from Modern college to the NCL gate. We have designed a track to keep the greenery as it is. The work will be completed within six months.”

In 2017, PMC prepared a comprehensive bicycle plan and launched a bicycle sharing scheme in various parts of the city, including at the SPPU, under the Pune Smart City Development Company Limited (PSCDCL).

After two years, all three private bicycle companies had withdrawn from the scheme due to lack of response and vandalism of bicycles.

Municipal commissioner Vikram Kumar has noww allocated around ₹20 crore in the PMC draft budget of 2021-22 to develop a new 10km cycle track as well as revamp existing cycle tracks in the city. As per PMC statistics, there is 98km of existing cycle tracks in the city.