E-Paper
After Pune civic body notice, road work on hill slope halts at Vetal Tekdi
Earlier on November 19, the PMC served a stop-work notice to the Maharashtra Institute of Technology citing unauthorised work on the hill slope at survey no 123 in Kothrud
Following the notice from Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), the road work at hill slope at Vetal tekdi (hill) was stopped on Tuesday in Kothrud.
Earlier on November 19, the PMC served a stop-work notice to the Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT) citing unauthorised work on the hill slope at survey no 123 in Kothrud.
HT has a copy of the notice PMC has served.
The MIT denied reports that any norms are being flouted while carrying out the work.
Mahesh Chopade, registrar at MIT said, “The said hill slope and survey number 123 belongs to MIT. We have 12 to 15 acres of land with some of it being part of the hill. These are baseless allegations that we are excavating in forest land, instead we are making an internal road for the use of the students in the future. Besides our students plant trees atop the hill which is part of MIT, during summer, there is not ample water, hence we were in the process of making a ‘kaccha’ road to help provide water on top through tankers. We are not constructing any road but making an internal road for which we don’t think we need any kind of permission.”
This was brought to the cognizance of PMC ward officers by local citizens who shared video clips and photographs of excavation work carried out during Diwali.
“We live near the MIT campus and we were surprised to see a major part of excavation carried out during the Diwali days, causing irreparable damage to the hill. This being a hill slope, we were worried about concretization taking place on the site,” said Pankaj Modi, a resident of Kothrud.
Yuvraj Deshmukh, deputy engineer at PMC building permission department said, “MIT had begun dumping rubble, sand and stones to create the base of the road and had excavated part of the slope. MIT did not seek any permission and hence it is an unauthorized construction activity for which we have served them a notice thus bringing the work to a halt.”
According to Sushma Date, member of Deccan Gymkhana Parisar Samiti, “Survey 123 is a part of the hill top-hill slope zone and hence as per DC rules 2017; all construction activity is banned here.”
Shivajinagar MLA Siddharth Shirole tweeted: “Citizens have approached me with concerns about the private road planned on #Vetal Tekdi. Understandably they are worried about the ecological impact. I will be talking with the authorities and concerned institution to ascertain repercussions and work towards an amicable solution.”
