Pimpri Chinchwad housing federation demands to appoint a member to oversee infra work in PCMC
Kalyani Nikumbh
To oversee the work of the municipal infrastructure, Pimpri Chinchwad Housing Federation has written a letter to the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation Commissioner Rajesh Patil, to appoint an office bearer from Federation.
A letter was recently handed over by the PCCHSF to Commissioner Rajesh Patil stating that while various development works are going on in Pimpri- Chinchwad for infrastructure, the city dwellers are facing various problems. Over the last several months, the city has been undergoing road repairs and new constructions. Many a time the road is dug up to lay underground cables which has severely disturbed the sewage line.
The Federation has raised the voice innumerable times through various mediums, against the negligence shown by the local citizens representatives. But, many times these grievances of the citizens are ignored. The Federation has demanded that the city dwellers should be represented as autonomous bodies in addition to people’s representatives of the municipality while such infrastructure works are underway in the city. This will give directions for monitoring the work infrastructure in the city. These members should have the right to give certain powers or instructions, so that [ad id=’13776′]
the city dwellers will be relieved of these troubles, which have been ignored in recent years.
The concreting and construction of roads is breaking the underground MSEDCL cables and creating power outages of 36 to 40 hours, residents are being deprived of online schools, exams, and office work.
“Under the name of development roads are dug at many places, the work is given to poor contractors who are breaking the underground cables, internet wires and MNGL pipes. We are facing a power outage for hours. There is no synchronization in contractors and officials. The roads are slippery, there are no safety measures. People are sitting in their AC offices and are planning the city. In our area the condition is opposite, first the road will be constructed but there is no provision for duct. Until and unless you involve citizens, understand their problem at ground level you will not be able to design a so-called smart city. This is a generic issue, and people from every field should get involved,’ said Tejaswini Dhomse, chairman, PCCHSF.
“This particular demand of PCHSF has been long pending. We wanted to be part of decision making for all sorts of the work. There is no formal process of validating that the work has been done up to the satisfaction of people. Problems are being caught every other day as the developmental works are going over the city. Development work is necessary but it should not create problems for residents. There is supervision , no quality validation, half of the work is done, half is pending. So, we decided to hand over this letter to the commissioner,” said Shailendra Birthare, Managing Committee member of PCCHSF and Treasurer of Sonigara Kesar society.
“Citizens are a part of the process though it is their feedback or their suggestion, we have started such a process. We can explore that but I have not received their letter with me. People’s participation is a must. We can involve them; their engagement is a must and we have involved them in a zero waste society initiative. As a concept we welcome that. And how much we will achieve from this; the future will tell us that. They can contribute in many ways. It depends how positively they get involved,” said Rajesh Patil, PCMC Commissioner.
