BRT corridors in Pune city will soon be open all vehicles to ease traffic movement (Representational,file)
Pune police commissioner Amitabh Gupta Sunday reiterated that the closure of the BRTS (Bus Rapid Transit System) routes will help ease the flow of traffic in Pune. A few days ago, the police chief had written to the Pune municipal commissioner, urging him to open the three existing BRTS routes in the city to all kinds of vehicles.
“We have nothing against the BRTS… We want the best possible solution in the present circumstances vis-a-vis the traffic situation. In the present scenario, opening up the BRTS routes seems to be the solution to mitigate the traffic chaos,” Gupta told indianexpress.com. In his letter to the Pune commissioner, the police chief pointed out that BRTS routes were not being utilised properly and were only adding to the burden of traffic in the city.
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At present, there are three BRTS corridors under Pune Municipal Corporation limits – one from Katraj to Swargate, another from Vishrantwadi to Sangamwadi, and the third from Nagar Road to Yerwada. The total length of the three routes is less than 20 km, said civic officials.
Asked whether the Pune police were seeking closure of all three BRTS routes, the police chief said: “Let the PMC come with a counter to my letter. They have told us that they will seek opinions on the issue.” A top PMC official said they were seeking expert, legal opinions on the issue.
Gupta said if one-third of the road is occupied by the BRTS while accommodating only two per cent of the vehicular population, it does not make sense to persist with it. “Most of the time, the BRTS routes are empty. They don’t even have much frequency on the routes,” he said.
The police chief said, “Some people are thinking about themselves. They are not sensitive enough about the traffic situation in the city. For instance, take the Metro service. It occupies a road patch on which the work is supposed to start two months later. And then for two months, the space is used for indiscriminate parking… causing traffic impediments.”
When asked if the PMPML (Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited) agreed with the police commissioner’s suggestion, PMPML chairman and managing director Omprakash Bokaria said they were not in favour of opening up BRTS routes for all kinds of traffic. “Instead ambulances, state transport buses, school buses, and police vehicles can be allowed to access BRTS routes,” he said.
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Bokaria said the BRTS helps in the smooth movement of PMPML buses which, in turn, helps commuters reach their destination quickly. “We also plan to increase the frequency of buses,” he said.
Describing it as a ‘turf war’ between the Pune police and the PMC, civic activist Prashant Inamdar, who heads Pedestrians First, said: “This is a simplistic way of looking at the problem. It is not the first time that the Pune police have raised the issue with the PMC. It had happened earlier too. The PMC always said the police are not regulating the traffic properly leading to traffic jams while the Pune police highlight the inadequate infrastructure provided by the civic body. This is a turf war and is happening at frequent intervals.”
Pointing out that the BRTS was not being efficiently run, Inamdar said: “It is true that the BRTS is not being operated efficiently leading to questions over its sustainability. The PMPML keeps highlighting the number of people transported through the BRTS corridors… The BRTS routes remain empty most of the time. If PMPML runs buses every three-to-four minutes on the three routes, then there is no reason why the police would call for their closure.”
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
