Journalism of Courage
The Army on Thursday convened the meeting of public representatives to find a solution to the issues concerning the residents living in cantonments. These issues include delay in clearances for the change of ownership of properties and difficulties in starting developmental projects in defence areas.
The GOC-in-C Southern Command,Lt Gen A K Singh,met Pune MP,Suresh Kalmadi,apart from cantonment representatives from PMC met,which was also attended by the Pune cantonment MLA,Ramesh Bagwe,Congress city president,Abhay Chajjad,Pune Cantonment Board CEO,K Venkat Nagi Reddy,PCB vice-president,Arti Mahajan and PMC Commissioner,Mahesh Pathak.
Congress city president,Abhay Chajjad said the meeting was held at the GOC-in-Cs office at Southern Command. He said the meeting also discussed the issue of delay in the construction of the railway over-head bridges (ROBs) at Ghorpudi which was putting the people of the area through inconveniences.
Local residents have been seeking that ROBs be set up in Ghorpudi so that people dont have to wait for hours during the movement of trains.
The project to construct the ROBs in the cantonment area has been pending clearance of the the armys sub-area command for over a decade.
The PCB has been maintaining that it has given the no objection certificate (NOC) for the project,but clearance is pending from the armys sub area. The clearance is required from the defence ministry as part of the land on which overhead bridges will come up is cantonment land and the bungalow area.
The civic body has to construct bridges for which the cost has been worked out to Rs 70 crore. Santosh Kavade,a local cantonment member,said that PMC is ready to spend the money and the matter is only pending with higher defence officials.
PCB vice-president,Arti Mahajan,said she also raised in the meeting the issue of delay in clearance of the mutation cases by the defence ministry. There are over 300 mutation cases pending with the defence authorities, she said,adding the army commander heard them and assured that he will look into the matters raised in the meeting.
According to representatives,during the meeting GOC-in-C was also pressed to use his good offices to ensure the cantonments also benefit from the Jawahar Lal Nehru National Rural Urban Mission (JNNURM) scheme.
