Metro officials said for first two stations, they will charge Rs 10. “After that till the end, we will charge Rs 20,” Sonawane said.
THE PUNE Metro, which is slated for inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of its nearly seven kilometre stretch from Pimpri to Phugewadi on Sunday, is in for a tough competition from much smaller modes of transport like three-seater autorickshaws and the PMPML buses. The reason: the smaller version of transport offers commuters the seven kilometre travel in a much cheaper cost than the Pune Metro.
Officials of MahaMetro, which is implementing the Pune Metro project, are however not worried about the ensuing competition from the autos. “Yes, there will be a competition. The autorickshaw, Ola, PMPML buses will offer complimentary service. If they are offering us a competition, it is good for commuters who have the option of making the right choice,” said Metro spokesperson Hemant Sonawane.
For a ride from Pimpri to Phugewadi, the Metro will charge a commuter Rs 20. For the same distance, the share-an-autorickshaw charges commuters just Rs 10. The share-an-autorickshaw plan is implemented in Pimpri-Chinchwad on 16 roads including the Pune-Mumbai highway. Only the share-an-auto plan offers cheaper ride, otherwise autos charge Rs 60-70 for the same ride.
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“Why would the commuter want to pay double the price for the same distance? Anyway, most of the commuters for short distance prefer autos while for going to Pune station and Shivajinagar area, they prefer a PMPML bus,” ask Baba Kamble, president of Maharashtra Rickshaw Panchayat.
Metro officials said for first two stations, they will charge Rs 10. “After that till the end, we will charge Rs 20,” Sonawane said.
Kamble said the autorickshaws are available every minute on the Pimpri-Phugewadi stretch. Metro officials, however, said a Metro train will be available every half an hour on this stretch. “The moment one steps on the highway stretch, an autorickshaw is available in no time. Why would the commuter then wait half-an-hour for a Metro train?,” ask Kamble.
Another problem for the commuters is that they will have to travel half kilometre to go to the nearest Metro station. There are five stations between Pimpri and Phugewadi. Both Vallabhnagar and Nashik Phata stations are located a little distance away from the residential areas.
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Auto drivers are now mulling further reduction in their rates. “If Metro is going to take away our commuters, then we will have to struggle further. As it is we have a tough competition among ourselves. We are contemplating reducing the rates to Rs 5,” said R Chitnis, an autodriver.
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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