Roof for homeless, seized cars & dump yard under Wakad flyover

Pune: A small, grim world exists below the buzzing Wakad flyover which takes traffic across the Katraj-Dehu Road bypass to glitzy Hinjewadi, the IT park hub.
The sheltered space under the flyover works for a multitude of things __ a dumping ground for unclaimed vehicles damaged in accidents, storage space to keep the sparse belongings of the homeless or a place that accumulates dust and rubble.

While the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has turned some of the spaces under its flyovers into beautiful gardens, the Wakad flyover’s underbelly is a testimony to neglect.

Two plots of land are fenced off, and the years of dust and grime that has gathered is all too visible, even from a distance. Two boxy buildings, painted cream, stand with some vehicles parked around them. One of the buildings used to be the Wakad police station, which has since shifted elsewhere, but the sign identifying it as a police station still remains, and the building is still functional.

The other building functions as the Wakad police chowkey, and it’s busy. But no one seems to care about the mess in the other allotted plot of land, where tens of vehicles__ including two-wheelers, four-wheelers, and even a large dumping lorry__ have remained rotting, seemingly for years. Crucial parts of the vehicles have also gone missing.

In between the dumped vehicles, the homeless have found a roof. They have laid out threadbare mattresses and pillows, and stowed away their belongings by covering them in torn bags and rags and tucking them into the gap between the pillars and the flyover’s girders. Generally, it is a picture of filth, with food rotting about, and plastic waste not cleaned for months.

“That is the case here at all times. Neither the police nor Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) does anything about the homeless people creating a mess here. Sometimes, they go away after they are evicted, but come back in a short time,” Adinath Zende, a local resident who works nearby, said.

Police said the vehicles have been either have no claimants. “The bikes, cars, and lorries were involved in accidents on the highway, or were impounded by the police due to traffic violations. In some cases, the owner was found dead due to the accident, or did not come back to claim the vehicle. Thus, we have no choice but to keep the vehicles there. All of them are disposed of by auction periodically. As for the homeless people, we sometimes drive them out, but they come back. The PCMC or other authorities should do something about it,” an officer from the Wakad police station told TOI.

Speaking to TOI, Vijay Bhojane, spokesperson of the Bus Rapid Transit System cell in PCMC, said, “There are anti-encroachment squads for each of the eight zones in the municipal limits that take action against unauthorized constructions and encroachments in their limits. Beat marshals conduct inspection in their allotted areas and inform about the encroachments after which action is taken against the unauthorized constructions and encroachments. If we find such violations under the flyover then we will take action to remove them.”