Disappointment for commuters as Pune Metro services to Shivajinagar to be delayed by two months

Currently, the trial run for the Metro service from Pimpri to Shivajinagar is underway. The Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety who will inspect the system will give a green signal based on a report on trial runs.

Brijesh Dixit, managing director of Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Ltd, has said that they are making efforts to start the service as early as possible. (File)

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COMMUTERS in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad who were eagerly waiting for Metro rail services up to Shivajinagar to get started in the New Year are in for a big disappointment. It will take at least another two months or could be even more for Pune Metro service to run up to Shivajinagar, the hub of Pune city, officials said.

“Currently, the trial run for Metro service from Pimpri to Shivajinagar is underway. After the trial runs are over, we will send the report to the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety who will inspect the system and then give a green signal. All this will need more than two months’ time,” Maha Metro spokesperson Hemant Sonawane told The Indian Express Friday.

The trial run between Pimpri and Shivajinagar started on December 31. The trial runs are carried out to ensure that the system is full-proof so that the service can be started full-fledged on the route. “The trial runs are carried out either on consecutive days or at intervals. If we find anything amiss, corrective steps are immediately initiated. Only after we find that there is nothing wrong with the system during the trial runs, will we then invite the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety to inspect the system. After this, we will wait for the Commissioner to give his report. If he suggests any corrective steps, we will be initiating the same,” the same.

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Thousands of commuters, especially office-goers and college students, who move to and from Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad have been waiting for the service to resume between Pimpri and Shivajinagar. Currently, the Metro service runs only between Pimpri and Phugewadi, for a distance of six kilometres. It was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi nine months ago.

Since then, Maha Metro has been promising to operate services up to Shivajinagar, which will be a game-changer. Initially, the Metro officials indicated that they would start the service from Diwali. Then, the date was extended year-end or in the New Year.

However, Brijesh Dixit, managing director of Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Ltd, has said that they are making efforts to start the service as early as possible.

The officials cite certain impediments to put the project on track. “Last month, the contractors supplying sand went on strike. It resulted in a delay of 15 days. Such hurdles keep cropping up. The Metro work has been completed up to 85 per cent,” Sonwane said.

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The inauguration, the officials said, was a political decision. “Our job is to get the work completed as soon as possible. We don’t look into the inauguration part,” Sonawane said.

College students, on the other hand, eagerly look forward to the Metro services to Shivajinagar as it would help thousands of students to reach their institutions on time. “Currently, due to heavy traffic jams between Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, students are finding it difficult to reach their college on time. The PMPML buses and the local trains are also running to full capacity,” said Suraj Karale, a college student.

Manoj Dattatrye More

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. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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