Residents cry foul as NIBM annexe slope reopening delayed yet again
Initially, the road department had promised to reopen one side of the road in the first week of May which it then postponed to June 6 and has now deferred once again to June 10
Residents of NIBM, Mohammadwadi and Undri are extremely disappointed with the road department of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) for postponing yet again the reopening of one side of the Anandvan Slope Road. Initially, the road department had promised to reopen one side of the road in the first week of May which it then postponed to June 6 and has now deferred once again to June 10. Area residents raised concerns that school children would be the worst affected by this delay in the slope reduction and reconstruction work.
Avinash Kamthe, PMC sub-engineer in charge of the slope reduction work, said, “Currently, we are completing road curation work and final touches are being given to the side margin works. Though we had announced that we would open the road on June 6, we now plan to open it on June 10 as some of the final work is still in progress. We don’t want any work to remain pending which is why the reopening has been rescheduled.”
Danish Khan, a resident of Imperial Housing Society, said, “We have been following-up on the issue of slope reduction since 2018 but the PMC has kept it pending and caused severe inconvenience to the citizens. Currently, the work is moving at a slow pace and we doubt if the road will be opened even on June 10. The work is going on very slowly…”
Prominent social worker Jaymala Dhankikar from Mohammad Wadi, said, “The road closure has destroyed the local economy wherein restaurants, hotels and eateries in the area have had to shut shop as there are no customers. Senior citizens are suffering the most and the entire area will be gripped by traffic chaos during the monsoon. The alternate roads namely NIBM-Undri Link Road and Mohammad Wadi-Undri Link Road cannot accommodate the increasing number of vehicles on their existing carriageways. If the PMC does not repair the roads on time, we will lodge an FIR against the civic body for endangering the lives of the people.”
The PMC road department is spending Rs3 crores on reducing the slope from 10 feet to 3 feet and changing the width to 24 metres. The slope that leads to Cloud 9 Society is the only road that connects to the opulent Mohammad Wadi area, which has become a major traffic bottleneck.
On May 20, an accident occurred at Palace Orchards on NIBM Road in which a bus collided with multiple vehicles including a car, motorcycle, small tempo, and auto-rickshaw. Two people were killed and several others were injured, according to police officials. Traffic was diverted from the scene following the accident. During the first week, the PMC claimed that it would put up rumblers on the road but failed to do so. Currently, Palace Orchard Chowk needs complete redesigning and tar layering work. The area residents also held a huge protest march condemning the civic body for its inaction and delay with respect to the road construction work. A right to information (RTI) query on property tax recovered by the PMC from the area revealed that the civic body had collected Rs223 crores from the area residents whereas the RTI was silent on specific questions related to how much the civic body had spent on development of the road and the water supply infrastructure in the area.
