Pune: Army plans to hand over civilian areas of Khadki cantonment to civic bodies

“Our cantonment board does not have enough resources to provide adequate services to us. Also, the policies here are different. We are not allowed to build new buildings and even if we get permission to repair them, they keep causing some trouble. There are problems related to water, roads, electricity and NOC as well,” said Harish Pardeshi, who owns a parking service in the Khadki cantonment area. “I am a firm believer that such a thing will never happen… The cantonment board won’t give away its control over civilian areas because their main source of revenue comes from collecting tolls from people who pass through here,” he added.

“The PMC should definitely take over the control of the operations here. The cantonment board is extremely slow at solving our problems. The roads here are very narrow and in the evening, there is too much traffic. When we tell this to the cantonment board, they do nothing,” said a shopkeeper in Khadki cantonment, who did not wish to be named.

Jagjeet Singh, a resident and an auto driver in the Khadki cantonment area said the PMC works more than the cantonment boards in the area. “I say that the control must go to the PMC. The cantonment board does nothing. The conditions of the roads never improve. They work at places where no work is required. Even though this is a cantonment area, it was the PMC who came and repaired the potholes here a few days ago… You go and see how the roads below the railway bridge are so narrow. It never occurred to the cantonment boards to broaden them. The three-lane road narrows down to a single lane below the tunnel…,” he said.

“There are so many unauthorised food stalls operating in the area. The cantonment boards remove them but they return after two days. This adds to the traffic on the already narrow lanes here. The cantonment board takes no strict action… If PMC takes over, we certainly expect some better action from their side,” said a resident.

Some residents said handing over to civic bodies would not change the state of the areas. “The civic bodies already have so much of area to operate in, there is absolutely no point in asking them to operate here and add to their burden. Be it the cantonment or a civic body operating here, I don’t expect any improvements,” said another resident.

Sangle, another resident of the Khadki cantonment, said he did not want the cantonment areas to be governed by the PMC, whose administration he said was “slackly”. “I don’t think that the control of the area should be handed over to PMC. All their solutions seem temporary. I have seen the mess in which the areas under PMC are.”