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Over 800 proposed civic works, mainly repair and maintenance of civic facilities across the city, have been put on hold to divert funds amounting to Rs 220 crore towards the construction of the long pending Katraj-Kondhwa road and bring respite to citizens.
“The work was undertaken in 2008 to construct the 3.5 km-long and 84 metre-wide Katraj-Kondhwa road from Rajas society to Pisoli via Khadi Machine Chowk. However, the work remains pending over failure to acquire private land for the project,” said municipal commissioner Naval Kishore Ram.
In an attempt to decongest traffic on city roads, the Katraj-Kondhwa Road had been planned to divert highway traffic of Solapur road, Satara road and Mumbai road coming from outside the city. Areas that come under the Katraj-Kondhwa Road have been witnessing rapid urbanisation leading to heavier traffic in the area.
The civic body chief said land owners who were to give their land to Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) have refused to accept the compensation through floor space index (FSI) or transfer of development rights (TDR) and have sought for cash payments instead.
“If the required land for the project has to be acquired through cash compensation then there would be a need of Rs 829 crore as per the estimates,” said Naval Kishore Ram.
Therefore, it was decided that the 3.5 km road with a width of 50 metres would be developed first and later further widened to 84 metres. “The land acquisition for a 50 metre wide and 3.5 km long Katraj-Kondhwa road will require Rs 280 crore. The civic body has a Rs 50 crore budget for the purpose and the remaining Rs 230 crore has to be made available in the next one and a half months so that the road will be completed by June next year,” said Ram.
“It is necessary to make required funds available immediately, which is why budgetary allocation of various proposed civic works is being diverted to make Rs 222 crore available for acquiring land for the Katraj-Kondhwa project,” he added.
The civic body will divert funds allocated for the repair of roads, footpaths, and storm water drains across the city. It has also diverted funds from the Building Development department that construct civic properties.
“The Katraj-Kondhwa Road is an important road but its construction had been pending for a long time. While diverting funds for the development of specific roads, the civic administration should ensure that necessary civic works across the rest of the city does not suffer,” said Nilesh Nikam, NCP(SP) leader and former standing committee chairperson of PMC.
He said this was the first time that funds meant for such a large number of civic works were being diverted for a single project. “There are small repair and maintenance works in the city that are necessary, so these works should not be affected. However, there is no harm in using funds allocated for work which are not necessary and can be taken up later on,” said Nikam.
