Following directions from Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, the civic administration of Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation has issued a stop-work notice for the 21–floor commercial building in Wakad. The PCMC action comes after allegations of a scam were first made by Congress in the State Assembly and then by Maha Vikas Aghadi in Pimpri-Chinchwad. The administration, however, refused to scrap the project and is apparently working on a solution to keep it going.
”We have issued the stop-work notice to the builder. The project has been stayed,” Municipal Commissioner Shekhar Singh told reporters at PCMC headquarters in Pimpri today. Asked if the project would be scrapped, the PCMC chief said they were still looking at analysing objections raised against the project. On whether his administration was determined to go ahead with the project, Singh said,”I am not saying we are determined to go ahead with the project. I have already said we are looking into the objections made against the project. As of now, the project has been stayed, not scrapped,” he said.
Ajit Pawar, while speaking to The Indian Express last week, had said he had asked PCMC administration to not go ahead with the project. However, despite his directives, PCMC administration refused to put a stay order on the project and, if civic sources are to be believed, the administration was making a consistent effort to keep the project going.
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In the past, the PCMC chief had repeatedly rejected allegations of illegality or wrongdoing in the project. However, Opposition leader Vijay Wadettiwar was the first to allege a multi-crore scam in the project. Maha Vikas Aghadi leaders in Pimpri-Chinchwad had then alleged that the builder would get transfer of development rights or TDR worth Rs 2,500 crore for a project in which he would be investing only Rs 568 crore. Rates quoted for the construction were way above the government’s Ready Reckoner rate, they had alleged. The PCMC commission had on the other hand defended the project, saying that the civic body would get Rs 5 crore in rent every month from the project without spending a single rupee on its construction.
Despite the uproar over the project, PCMC administration had received no directives from CM Eknath Shinde or Dy CM Devendra Fadnavis to scrap or stay the project, officials said. ”And that is why the administration has kept the project going. Even now, it is in no mood to scrap the project,” sources said.
When contacted, builder Aditya Javadekar confirmed that he has received a stop-work notice from PCMC. ”The PCMC has asked us to stop the work, as it told us it was analysing the objections raised and will then decide on whether to go ahead with the project or not. Till that time, we will wait. The ball is in PCMC’s court, we will act as per its directives,” he said.
Asked about the amount so far spent on the construction of the project, Javdekar said,”In about three to four four months, we have completed work till the plinth. We have spent crores on it,” he said. Civic sources said the builder has spent more than Rs 50 crore on the project so far.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
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