PUNE: Additional municipal commissioner Rubal Agarwal on Monday told the office-bearers of the Sahakarnagar bungalow societies that the civic body would not forcibly widen the roads of their colonies if most of the property owners opposed the proposal and their objections were found to be valid during the hearing.
A delegation of the office-bearers of the bungalow owners in Sahakarnagar, led by Congress leader Aba Bagul, called on Agarwal and Rajendra Raut, the superintendent engineer of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC)’s building permission department, on Monday and handed them a memorandum objecting to the civic body’s move to widen the roads to nine metres from the existing six metres in their area.
Bagul sought to know how the internal roads in the plotted bungalow societies, plans for which were duly approved by the civic body five decades ago, were shortlisted for widening.
Most residents argued that the lanes shortlisted were part of the sanctioned layout plans.
Also, they claimed, these were meant for internal traffic and not linked to any major thoroughfares and most culminated into a dead-end.
Agarwal told them, “You will be given a hearing and if there is a merit in your arguments, the road-widening will not be forced upon you. But it is very important that you file an official objection by following the process as mentioned in the notices issued.”
The residents complained during the meeting that the civic body had pasted the notices inviting suggestions and objections at obscure places — some even on DP boxes on street light poles — and this delayed their response.
They sought to know if responding to the notice was so important, why the society was not served an official notice, more so since the PMC’s tax collection wing had addresses of all property owners in any areas.
“Just like a tax bill, it’s a basic courtesy that the person whose property is being affected is served a notice or at least it is pasted on official notice boards by enlarging the photocopies of the notices,” the residents said.
Referring to a notice pasted on a wall near Santosh Bakery on Apte Road, Bagul questioned, “How you expect people from Apte Road to know that the PMC plans to widen their lane and they need to file suggestions and objections?”
Raut, the superintendent engineer of the corporation’s building permission department, said the PMC had issued advertisements in most newspapers in the city and the list of the roads to be widened was available on its website.
BJP leader Suhas Kulkarni on Monday requested the PMC to extend the January 29 deadline by a fortnight to enable more citizens file the objections to the road-widening proposal.
He, however, appealed to the citizens to try to meet the deadline as his request was yet to be accepted.