Pune: Residents of Viman Nagar Express Fear Over Opening Of New Airport Road As Traffic Conditions Become More Unruly 

Appeals for joint meetings of the residents, police and PMC to come up with solutions have gone unacknowledged.

11 May 2024

By Khushi Maheshwari

Viman Nagar, which is supposed to be one of the most well developed and lavish areas of the city, finds itself in a swamp of unruly traffic conditions which have frustrated the residents beyond compare. Instances of double parking, wrong side parking, parking on footpaths, wrong side driving, rash driving and so on have infested the roads of Viman Nagar. 

The residential area, which was once a quiet and peaceful place to live, is now filled with cacophonies of obnoxiously loud honkings and traffic. The Mhada road in Viman Nagar was found to be smeared with vehicles in a very haphazard manner, worsening the traffic congestion situation. 

The Convenor of the Viman Nagar Citizen’s forum, Qaneez Sukhrani, explained how the quaint residential area of Viman Nagar was not equipped to handle the sudden boom in commercialisation and population. Talking about the upcoming developments, she said, “The recent thing is that for the airport terminal two they want to open up a road to Viman Nagar, the airport has 200 flights daily and at least 50% of the cabs will enter into the residential area and worsen the traffic congestion situation.” 

Shyam Kuddyady, a resident who has been putting up in Viman Nagar for about 20 years, also expressed his frustrations and concerns about the lack of planning and consideration given by the PMC for the construction of the new road. He said, “This road which is called the West Avenue, is supposed to be taking traffic which is coming out of the airport, from the new exit and the new arrival, there is a new road which has been constructed rather thoughtlessly because the construction of the new road has made it narrower —from a 4 lane road to a 2 lane road.” 

He went on to explain how this new road, which basically becomes a one and a half lane road, will be taking the brunt of the traffic coming in from the airport as well as the residential localities. He terms the condition of traffic and resulting noise pollution as “organised chaos” everyday 24/7. 

Appeal after appeal to address these issues has gone unheard and the same story of shifting accountability can be resounded here too from the PMC and the police. “Since November 2023 we have been asking for a meeting with the police and PMC on one platform but if you go to police they will put the blame on PMC and vice versa,” added Qaneez. 

Both the residents emphasised the need to find a holistic approach and slammed the PMC for only caring about these issues when the situation becomes critical or when prominent political figures visit the city during elections.

The Convenor and RTI activist, who has put her heart and soul into safeguarding the wellbeing of the residents, also started an online petition asking for 500 signatures for the same issue to invoke action and accountability from the authorities’ end. Click here for the petition