After being ordered by the Supreme Court to remove debris from the river bed near Vitthalwadi last week, the civic body has now decided to employ a private player for the job. The SC gave the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) a six-month deadline; however, PMC realistically has only three months for the cleanup, as the monsoon will arrive in June.
The civic body had dumped the 35-40,000 truck worth of debris inside the blueline of the Mutha riverbed to lay a side road. Omprakash Bakoria, additional municipal commissioner of PMC, admitted that the civic body lacks the necessary machinery to undo it. “Removal of debris is a massive work. We have instructed the road department to float atender in this regard,” he said.
However, the road department said PMC is not solely responsible for the dumping. The state irrigation department had dumped debris inside the blue line area to safeguard adjoining residential complexes in 2006. PMC had then decided to construct the Riverside Road, for which they built a retaining wall and also dumped debris for its construction. PMC has spent Rs 15 crore of the estimated Rs 24 crore and completed 65 per cent of the work to build an 80-ft wide bypass from Vitthalwadi to NH-4 to ease traffic congestion on Sinhagad Road.
On Thursday, an SC bench ordered the removal at PMC’s expenditure and instructed the chief engineer of the public works department (PWD) to supervise the process. It also confirmed National Green Tribunal (NGT) order which was passed in July 2013 in this regard.
The NGT had also ordered PMC to built elevated pillars, on which the road is to be laid, on the river bed to not restrict water flow. It further stated, “PMC shall ensure that the debris / excavated materials from excavation of retaining wall shall be removed and ensure that no further debris on the other bank of the river is dumped in future.”
Source: Punemirror, Feb’17
