Ghorpadi residents cut off from Pune

Home buyers, think twice before buying a flat in Ghorpadi area, where the minimum per square foot price is around Rs3,200.

The reason: If you want to go to Camp area or Ahmednagar Road from Ghorpadi, you either have to wait for up to 25 minutes at the railway crossings, or will have to take a 6-km detour, for which you will have to spend more on fuel.

Since the year 2000, residents who have purchased homes in the area have been at the receiving end as the authorities concerned have failed miserably to construct a railway overbridge on one of the two major rail tracks in the area.

“We are isolated, like an island in the city,” pointed out Pranab Majumdar, a Ghorpadi resident who made Pune his home 20 years ago. “When we bought our house in this area we didn’t know we would face so much problem commuting,” he lamented.

Ghorpadi is uniquely positioned. Flanked by localities such as Mundhwa, Hadapsar and the Southern Command headquarters, it has three railway crossings creating a triangle of blocks that virtually isolates the area. The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Limited (MSRDC) constructed a railway overbridge on one of the tracks and eased the flow of traffic from BT Kawde Road towards Hadapsar. But approach roads from Kalyaninagar-Mundhwa and Camp are inaccessible for most parts of the day due to rail traffic on these tracks.

“I have been told by railway authorities that about 166 trains, mostly goods rakes, cross these tracks every day. During peak hours, there are trains passing every 20 minutes or so,” said Majumdar, who faces this problem daily.

The proposed plan for a railway overbridge was reported by media in 2004. “We were happy to hear about the plan as it would have resolved our problems. But nothing has been done about it so far,” said Majumdar.

Seven years since then, real estate growth in the area has been phenomenal and traffic has increased manifold. Although the MSRDC website still lists the railway overbridge in Ghorpadi as part of its project, deputy engineer of MSRDC, AC Wadke, told DNA that the corporation had assigned the task to the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) more than three years ago. “We don’t have the project with us anymore,” he added.

The additional city engineer (traffic and BRT) of PMC, Srinivas Bonala, admitted that construction of the overbridge has been unduly delayed. “Part of the area where construction was to be taken up belongs to the Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) and we also deposited about Rs8 lakh with them. But the defence authorities took objection to our plan,” said Bonala.

According to him, the PMC is in the process of making alterations in the plan based on suggestions of the army authorities. However, he did not give a time frame for the implementation of the project. The proposed overbridge is meant to ease the sufferings of residents who, according to Majumdar, are treated like residents of East Germany (isolated and ignored).

“Going by the manner in which the authorities are treating the issue, it seems like it will be a while before the ‘Wall of Berlin’ in this case breaks down,” he added.