E-Paper
Rs 1,000 Cr and 12 years later is Pune’s BRTS a failure?
PMC received Rs 1,013.97 crore as an instalment from the central government to execute this project. In addition to spending this amount, the PMC has further spent around Rs100 crore from its budget to improve the pilot BRTS and for maintenance of the other BRTS corridors
Twelve years after it was launched as the first national pilot project, Pune municipal corporation (PMC) has not been able to make significant progress on the bus rapid transport system (BRTS) in the city.
After being launched in 2006, the civic administration had promised to construct 112 km of BRTS routes, presenting it as the panacea for the city’s transport problems. However, neither political leadership, not the administration, is keen that the project progresses fast as seen from the work on the ground.
Soon after its launch, the PMC received Rs 1,013.97 crore as an instalment from the central government to execute this project. In addition to spending this amount, the PMC has further spent around Rs100 crore from its budget to improve the pilot BRTS and for maintenance of the other BRTS corridors. However, the end result is that only 30 km of the route has been functional so far and even this is in a poor condition.
Road department head Aniruddha Pawaskar said that the PMC wants to eliminate the mistakes committed in the pilot BRTS, such as level boarding, closed entrance at bus stop and road crossings .It is thus making modifications to the Ahmednagar and Aandi road BRTS by ensuring level boarding.
According to Pawaskar, the work on the 6.5km route from Katraj to Swargate is nearing completion, but as work of bus stations is incomplete, it is not operational. The work on the seven-km stretch from Swargate to Hadapsar will start in the next financial year (2019-2020).
“We are planning to undertake BRTS work on Ganeshkhind road and on the old Pune- Mumbai road. Work on the bus stops between Raj Bhavan and Bremen chowk began, but it was stopped because of some problems,” he said.
Civic activist Qaneez Sukhrani has come down heavily on the PMC and the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Ltd (PMPML), claiming that despite spending crores of rupees on the BRTS corridors the infrastructure is in poor condition. She pointed out that the automatic doors on Ahmednagar road and Alandi road BRTS routes are not functioning.
Passenger information systems such as electronic display screens with bus arrivals and voice announcements are also not working. “There is a need to impose greater accountability on the BRTS officials and concerned authorities need to be penalised for not maintaining the facility which was built with the tax payer’s money,” Sukhrani said.
Civic activist Jugal Rathi said, “It’s sad that despite getting a grant, PMC is not able to execute this project effectively. BRTS is good concept, but the administration and politicians did not have willingness to execute it properly. The condition of existing BRTS corridor is very poor and shabby. We as civic activists suggested various measures, but the administration did not want to execute it. Considering this, recently, we resigned from the BRTS committee which was formed by PMC commissioner.”
