Bavdhan residents install reflectors on the divider via crowd funding
Jigar Hindocha
Pune: As Pune Municipal Corporation were not able to place reflectors on dividers at Shinde Nagar lane 3 and 2 in Bavdhan, residents did crowd funding and installed the reflectors as it was causing inconvenience for the people who commute at night.
According to residents, repetitive reminders to the PMC road department did not bear fruit as the department has a shortage of funds and manpower to complete the work.
The residents spend around Rs 5000 on installing reflectors. The Pune Municipal Corporation had constructed a cement divider one month before.
“The issue was pending for the last four to five weeks and since it was hard to locate the divider without reflectors, we residents decided to complete the task for the safety of people. When we contacted PMC they told us they don’t have the resources and budget. We followed up on the issue but no response was coming from PMC,” said Dushyant Bhatia, a member of the Bavdhan Citizen Forum.
Dividers are placed in two patches – one near the Shinde Petrol pump and the other in Shinde Nagar.
The PMC has only constructed dividers and they are yet to paint it.
In February 2022, in the same locality, a 25-year-old girl died after an accident.
C S Krishnan, another member of Bavdhan Citizen Forum, who has been following traffic management issues rigorously in the area for two years said, “It was a fatal accident and it happened because the basic infrastructure was missing from the road. Still improving traffic management requires an hour as a pedestrian also faces many problems while walking on the roads.”
Priyanka Bante, junior engineer from PMC Road Department said, “In a few days we were about to place reflectors on the dividers. Along with the dividers on lanes, we have also placed dividers on the accident prone sites in Bavdhan.”
