Journalism of Courage
ALMOST after 10 years, work on the proposed five-storeyed ‘Mamledar Kacheri’, housing the officials of the Revenue Department, Settlement Commissioner’s office and police stations, at Shukrawar Peth is likely to gain momentum post Diwali, with the proposed metro alignment likely to be shifted 100 metres north from the present site.
The construction of the kacheri was stalled due to various reasons, one of them being that the area fell under the upcoming Pune metro project. The current office is located in the busy Shukrawar Peth area where visitors do not even have a parking facility.
The passages between the office and the police station are occupied by touts, who have been repeatedly asked to leave the premises. Revenue officials said, therefore, they are eagerly waiting for the construction of the new building. “We had requested the civic officials to shift the proposed metro alignment 100 metres away and they agreed to it. We should get the clearance soon and the developer can then start the construction of the building, which has been pending for a decade now,”said a senior Public Works Department (PWD) official.
Presently, two basements and the stilt floor have been constructed and the remaining will be built once the clearances are given, said the PWD official.
The government had given the contract for the construction work on build operate transfer basis in 2005. The developer allegedly failed to meet the deadline due to encroachments on the allotted land. “The issues between the developer and the PWD, and the revenue authorities have been settled and once the clearance for the shifting comes through, the project will be underway,”said the officials from the revenue department. The delay in the construction of the proposed building has been discussed at the state-level meetings over several years years and the construction was to be completed by 2008. However, even after giving extensions on three occasions to the developer, the project did not take off.
