Local tekdi lovers welcome court order

While the PMC plans to resume work on clearing the debris and demolishing the kuccha road once they get the court order, the local residents who took up this issue

While the PMC plans to resume work on clearing the debris and demolishing the kuccha road once they get the court order, the local residents who took up this issue and persevered to protect the hills of the city have mixed reactions.

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“The 35,000 Punekars who petitioned against any construction activity on this tekdi are grateful to PMC for their strong affidavit in court rejecting permission to MIT. As per the rules, very limited construction is allowed on the Hill Top Hill Slope zone. It’s surprising that MIT is so bent on constructing a road just for students to water plants up on the hill. There are better ways to carry out plantation drives on hills without disturbing the hill topography and destroying the biodiversity and I am sure many green NGOs will be happy to guide MIT students on this,” said Sushma Date, member of the Deccan Gymkhana Parisar Samiti who was one of the members who pursued the issue with PMC.

Days after the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) asked the Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT) to clear debris gathered on Vetal tekdi which exists because of a road being built on the hill slope, area residents met municipal commissioner Vikram Kumar with a delegation of residents from Erandwane, Deccan, and Kothrud, to urge him to deny permission to MIT to build the said road, citing DC rules 2017, that disallowed any construction on hill slopes.

While the residents living in the vicinity of MIT are not entirely content with the order pointed out that MIT acts with arrogance with locals and the officials might try to go to higher courts.

“As the tekdi is in the green zone on the hilltop hill side, they are not supposed to put any kind of debris on the hill. Still, they have done it. After getting rejected by the court also they will try to do all types of mischievous things on site. Actually, they should remove the entire debris they have dumped on site. It is really dangerously dumped. It can cause casualties in the future,” said Aniruddha Khandekar, a resident of Kothrud.