Activists, residents unhappy with Pune beautification work for G20
In preparation for the G20 summit meetings scheduled in Pune, the Pune Municipal Corporation cleaned and beautified the city. PMC has won the wrath of both residents and politicians alike as they blame the former for beautifying the city for foreign delegates, but in reality, the citizens are facing a host of problems like broken roads, non-working streetlights, among others.
While work for the summit meetings was going on in full swing, other repair works in Pune was left unattended by the officials. Citizens are complaining that the Corporation is wasting taxpayers’ money unnecessarily. Illegal constructions, dumping of garbage, free flow of waste in nullahs & drains, legal and illegal hawkers on footpaths, footpaths taken over by various encroachments, removal by PMC of 70 odd traffic signposts on Airport Road and VIP Airport Road littered with garbage – are some of the issues which need to be addressed immediately.
Sharing her thoughts about the same, Qaneez Sukhrani, civic activist, from Association of Nagar Road Citizens Forums said, “For the preparation of welcoming foreign delegates, PMC did repair and beautification work. To impress foreign delegates, they ignored the work that needed attention and also hid things. But the money they used for all the work is from taxpayers, it is we who pay taxes, and this is the money which is used by the Central and State. In fact, in places, they removed the sign boards. This is very wrong; we taxpayers did not allow them to use our money.”
