Broken drainage chamber near DAV school poses threat to motorists
Akash Dhanurkar
Poor planning by smart city to install drainage in the middle of the road near DAV School Aundh, led to the breaking of one of the chamber covers, possibly due to transport of heavy vehicle on it, has posed a risk of accident to the commuters; thus, raising doubts on the quality of drainage covers used by the authority.
Vaishali Patkar, one of the active social workers while travelling in an auto-rickshaw spotted the damaged drainage cover; not replaced even after registering repeated complaints to the ward officer to look into the matter. It enraged the activist and she decided to take the officials to the task.
Patkar called Arun Godbole, a smart city official and area incharge of the civic projects of the area, to escalate the issue that could have even caused a major accident as three cars merely escaped an untoward incident, she reported.
Arun Godbole quickly assigned contractor engineer, Satish Sangavde, to take care of the issue and asked the contractor to replace the poor quality drainage covers with steel fabricated ones.
While talking to Pune Pulse, Godbole said, “I have immediately ordered the contractor to replace the poor quality drainage cover with a steel fabricated cover. I personally do not like inconvenience in the development of public amenities and hence, I have penalised the contractor to replace the drainage cover at his personal cost.”
Indicating that did not receive any feedback from the ward officer on existing complaints of Vaishali Patkar, Arun Godbole denied any negligence from Smart City department; thus, it indicates lack of communication from the area ward officer, Jaydeep Pawar.
Contractor Engineer, Satish Sangavde, informed Pune Pulse that it will take around two days to replace the covers with steel fabricated ones. The order has been placed and within two days the work will be done.
Arun Godbole asked the engineer to barricade the site and assured that the chambers will be replaced by Wednesday, I.e 25 November.
However, Vaishali Patkar, while talking to Pune Pulse, said, “The very first thing that I want to raise is the poor drainage and road planning. How can these engineers and officials plan a drainage in the middle of the road? This has caused due to pathetic planning which is now posing a big risk to the lives of taxpayers. What are these public servants doing when citizens, themselves, have to spot such issues? Initially, Arun Godbole did throw excuses to replace the cover, but when I warned him of escalation, he immediately sent engineer and contractor to place barricade and replace the damaged drainage cover with steel fabricated one.”
She further said, “Replace the damaged drainage cover with the steel fabricated ones, although they haven’t replaced it yet. So, need to check if the barricades are intact.”
