The foundation stone of the project will be laid soon, as per the availability of senior state BJP leaders, and the project work will be completed in 36 months. (Representational image)
Work on a much-awaited infrastructure project — to resolve the traffic chaos on Sinhagad Road — is set to start soon as the Standing Committee of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Tuesday awarded a contract for construction of a flyover on the stretch.
“The civic administration had prepared an estimate of Rs 135 crore. The contract has been awarded to T&T Infra Ltd for Rs 134.70 crore,” said Hemant Rasane, chairperson of the PMC Standing Committee. He said the foundation stone of the project will be laid soon, as per the availability of senior state BJP leaders, and the project work will be completed in 36 months.
Rasane said as the Metro route is likely to be developed on Sinhagad Road in the future, a no-objection certificate will be taken from Pune Metro, and the flyover will be designed in a way so that there are no problems in constructing pillars for the Metro route.
The proposed flyover is, in fact, a chain of flyovers on the main Sinhgad Road from Rajaram Bridge to Funtime Cinema. The 1,890-metre flyover from city area to Sinhagad Road locality will start from Vithalwadi and end in front of Funtime Cinema theatre, jumping six junctions in all. The 1,540-metre-long flyover from Sinhagad road locality to city will take off from in front of Indian Hume Pipe company in Manikbaug and end at Inamdar chowk near Ranka Jewellers store in Hingane, jumping four junctions. There will be another flyover of 495 metres that will start from Vithalwadi and end near Veer Baji Pasalkar Udyan, while jumping the main junction of Rajaram bridge.
The PMC has undertaken the flyover project after several demands from local residents and elected representatives, citing increasing traffic problems on the only road to areas such as Hingne Khurd, Anandnagar, Vadgaon Budruk, Vadgaon Dhayari, Narhe and Ambegaon Budruk, among others, where the population has been increasing rapidly.
The civic body has not been able to widen Sinhagad Road due to the residential buildings located close to either side of the road. The PMC had also proposed the implementation of Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) on the road but has not been able to execute it due to lack of space for developing dedicated lanes for BRTS.
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