NINE years after work on Pavana pipeline came to a standstill after three protesting farmers were killed in a police firing, there is a glimmer of hope for water-starved residents of Pimpri-Chinchwad as the Chief Minister’s Office has indicated to intervene to resolve the dispute between the industrial city and Maval farmers.
“Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray is keen to resolve the issue of the long-pending Pavana pipeline project. The Shiv Sena has held discussions over it with him,” Shiv Sena MP and party’s national spokesperson Sanjay Raut told The Indian Express.
Raut said Thackeray will soon convene a meeting with all stakeholders. “Be it Maval farmers or officials and leaders from Pimpri-Chinchwad and Maval, the CM is keen to… find an acceptable solution to the dispute through discussions,” Raut said, adding that Sena would again discuss the matter with the CM.
Meanwhile, the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation also seems keen to restart the project, with the civic administration exploring the possibility of appointing contractors and consultants for the Rs 400 crore project. “We are making efforts to restart the project. We are exploring the possibility of appointing contractors and consultants,” Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar told The Indian Express on Tuesday.
The initiative aims at meeting the water needs of 25 lakh residents, who are struggling to get their quota even when the Pavana dam is overflowing.
The civic administration has inquired with the contractor and consultant who were working on the project before it was stalled. “There were some disputes with the contractor regarding the work done and payment to be made. We are trying to resolve the issue. Since the contractor and the consultant had been working on the project and are aware of tasks ahead, we might reappoint them,” Hardikar said.
The PCMC chief said they have already sent letters to the state government to start the project. “…So far we have not received any response,” he said.
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PCMC Executive Engineer Ramdas Tambe said the project was stalled by then CM Prithviraj Chavan after three farmers, who were protesting against the laying of pipeline through Maval, were killed in police firing in 2011.
The project involves laying a 35-km pipeline from Pimpri-Chinchwad to Pavana dam and lifting water through a closed pipeline.
Tambe said the issue had gone before the Bombay High Court, who sent it to the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority (MWRRA). “After hearing both sides, the MWRRA, in January 2018, ruled that PCMC can lift water from Pavana river for four months in monsoon while it can take water through closed pipeline for nine months. Since then, we have been waiting for the green signal from the Chief Minister’s Office,” he said, adding that lifting water directly from Pavana dam will save transportation losses.
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.
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