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'Finished' Satara Rd pavement bits leave residents, lawmakers furious

Part of Rs 90 cr civic project, footpath is riddled with broken tiles, encroachments; belatedly, PMC promises review

A pavement adhering to urban street design guidelines sounds good on paper, but clearly does not feel so good when lost in translation. And, according to citizens, this is what seems to have happened on Satara Road after spending Rs 70 crore of public money and pitching another Rs 20 crore on unfinished work — contractors who’ve pocketed money during execution but delivered shoddy work, taking it easy as the monitoring agency (in this case, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) chose to look the other way.



The 11-month work order for doing up Satara Road and the pavements flanking it was to be finished in March this year, but remained uncompleted, forcing another sixmonth work order.

Meanwhile, the part of the pavement that did get made has been coming apart or has gotten trounced by intense encroachments, said Sanjay Shitole, an area resident who has been raising civic issues. On Monday, he filed a formal complaint on the dismal state of the footpath on Satara Road. Meanwhile, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) corporator from the area, Rajendra Shilimkar, who has been protesting this project from very outset, complained that he was also not given an ear by the civic body.

Shitole pointed out that in the 1-km stretch between Walwekar Lawns and Panchami Hotel where work has been ‘completed’, tactile installations made for the visually challenged have come off at multiple spots. At other places, hawkers have taken over the pavement in such a way that the tactile inserts are covered by their stalls. At many spots, even paver blocks have come loose, while bollards placed to restrict vehicles from accessing the footpath have been broken at multiple locations. There are also sections of the pavement that have been completely lost to encroachments.

A pedestrian can barely walk a few metres without facing obstructions. “There are deep cracks on the cycle track and with the tactile installations also popping out, the stretch has become dangerous for those guided by walking sticks. The issue of encroachment never gets addressed. But, PMC ought to investigate why the quality of work is so poor and as it is still under the ‘defect liability’ period, so they can recover the cost from the contractor,” Shitole urged.

For Shilimkar, the frustration is so deep that he is embarrassed with his position of being a corporator. “I have raised the issue multiple times and protested in public, too. Yet, the authorities have taken no cognisance or set about doing repairs. On the other hand, they issued yet another work order unmindful of the dodgy job done earlier. Unable to resolve the issue, I have now started feeling ashamed of being a corporator,” he told Mirror.

When questioned, Aniruddha Pawaskar, head of the PMC road department, who’d apparently failed to take note of the complaints earlier, offered to do a review. “The footpath will be examined thoroughly again. I will ask my engineers to revisit and verify the veracity of the complaints. If the issues are found in the stretch where work has been finished, we can ask the contractor to get repairs done as we are still in the ‘defect liability’ period. If there are tree branches lying around and trimming was done by the garden department, it is their responsibility to remove them. I have also been pursuing the issue of encroachment with the department concerned repeatedly. If action is constant, it will be effective,” the officer insisted.

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