Pune: The civic organizations on Tuesday urged the municipal commissioner to stop granting permission to lay new cement concrete roads and water pipelines in the city with immediate effect, a day after the Pune Municipal Corporation’s standing committee approved the 24X7
water supply tenders.
The Sajag Nagrik Manch (SNM) on Tuesday approached the municipal commissioner, Kunal Kumar, with various demands pertaining to the implementation of the 24X7 water supply project. It pointed out that roads were expected to be dug up across the city to lay new pipelines under the project and so it was not advisable to give permission to lay new cement roads — hard to break. It reasoned concreting roads and digging them again for the water supply project would be a waste of money.
Vivek Velankar, the founder member of SNM, claimed that Kumar gave a positive response to their appeal. “We will now have to see the civic administration’s plan to implement the project,” he said.
Velankar said besides the road concreting work, the administration should immediately stop all works related to laying new pipelines. The authorities should not allocate any funds for these works because new pipelines have been proposed under the 24X7 water supply project. Over 1,700km of pipeline network was expected to come up under the project, Velankar said.
The 24X7 water supply project aims to bring down leakages and ensure equitable distribution in the city. The standing committee approved six tenders, amounting to Rs2,055 crore, for the project.
Vishwas Sahasrabuddhe, another activist said, the municipal commissioner should establish communication with the departments concerned of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) at the earliest to avoid further chaos. There had already been lack of communication among PMC’s various departments, he said.
Sahasrabuddhe also questioned the expenses incurred on concreting roads in the past few years. Many smaller roads and lanes in the city had been concreted in the past few years. The administration would now have to break these roads to lay water pipes, he said.
