This is an archive article published on November 23, 2020
PCMC’s Rs 400-crore slum rehab project in soup, falls within red zone
Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar said, “Now since the map of the area has been published showing the project within 2,000 yards of the ordnance depot, the high court will take a call on the project. We will wait for the high court ruling in this case.”
The Rs 400-crore slum rehabilitation project of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) at Survey No. 22 in Nigdi area has landed in a soup what with the demarcated map showing that the project falls within the red zone or 2,000 yards of Dehu Road Ordnance Depot.
The demarcated map was published by the district collectorate on Friday. The collectorate surveyed the area and published the map on the directions of the Bombay High Court. The court had given a stay on the project in 2018 after PCMC corporator Seema Savale had approached it, raising the question of legality of the project.
When contacted on Sunday, Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar said, “Now since the map of the area has been published showing the project within 2,000 yards of the ordnance depot, the high court will take a call on the project. We will wait for the high court ruling in this case.”
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Hardikar said since the issue related to 2011 when he was not the municipal commissioner, he will have to find out on what basis the project was sanctioned. “We will have to find out how the project was sanctioned in that particular area,” he said.
Savale, a BJP corporator and former standing committee chairperson, said she had approached the high court and raised the issue of legality of the project. “I brought to the notice of the high court that the project was within the red zone area of Army and was therefore illegal. Accordingly, the court had directed demarcation of the area by the Land Records Department which has now published the map of the area. The map clearly shows that the project falls within 2,000 yards of the prohibited area of Dehu Road Ordinance Depot,” she said.
Savale said now the entire project has acquired the status of illegality and therefore Rs 100 crore spent on it so far will go waste. “Around 3,000 flats have been completed so far; 2,700 have been handed over. Rs 100 crore had been spent on constructing the flats,” she said.
Savale said the project was approved by PCMC on a 100-acre land under the central government’s JNNURM. The Centre was supposed to provide 50 per cent finance while the rest was to be shared by PCMC and the state government. The entire project envisaged construction of 11,760 flats for slum dwellers.
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BJP leader Sarang Kamtekar said besides illegality of the project, the party had also pointed out corruption in the project. “As per the Detailed Project Report, the project was supposed to be for Rs 225 crore. However, the final cost of the project was pegged at Rs 400 crore which was a case of inflated tender cost. We had brought this to the notice of the high court,” he said.
Kamtekar said during the survey by the collectorate, it was found that the project was within 2,000 yards of the outer periphery wall of the depot. “We had raised this point then. However, NCP led civic administration had refused to listen to us which forced us to approach the high court. The court had given the stay in 2012,” he said.
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.
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