In a sudden move, the general body (GB) of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Thursday passed a resolution to build an underground metro railway project on all routes in the city instead of the proposed elevated one.
In a sudden move, the general body (GB) of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Thursday passed a resolution to build an underground metro railway project on all routes in the city instead of the proposed elevated one.
The GB in June 2010 approved a proposal for a 15-km elevated metro railway project from Vanaz to Ramwadi. The proposal was sent to the state government for approval. The government has given ‘in principle’ approval and is working on the financial package for the same. Now, preparations for the metro project became meaningless as the nodal agency, the PMC decided to have an underground metro railway instead of an elevated one.
On Thursday, a standing committee proposal to build underground and elevated metro projects in the city as per technical advice of the Delhi Metro Railway Corporation (DMRC) was taken up for consideration in the GB. Shiv Sena group leader Sham Deshpande moved a supplementary resolution that the metro project on all routes in the city should be underground.
Leader of the house and group leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Subhash Jagtap supported Deshpande’s proposal.
The proposal was passed with 20 votes in favour and 13 against. The Shiv Sena, NCP and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) as well as Murlidhar Mohol of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Ujwal Keskar (independent) supported the proposal. The Congress and BJP opposed it.
Meanwhile, group leader of the Congress and the leader of opposition in the PMC, Aba Bagul demanded that municipal commissioner Mahesh Pathak immediately cancel the resolution for the underground metro passed on Thursday.
He said in a letter to the municipal commissioner that the Congress party had proposed 10 years ago to develop a metro rail project in the city. The proposal was passed by all political parties in the PMC after getting a detailed project report (DPR) and discussion on it. After the proposal was sent to the state government, the NCP suddenly demanded that there should be underground metro project. However, chief minister Prithviraj Chavan declared that the metro project would be as per the DPR and hence the elevated one.
He said that while the elevated metro project was at the final stage of approval, a resolution was passed in the GB for reconsideration. If the elevated metro project is reconsidered at this stage then it would take years to implement the project and the expenditure for the same would increase in multiples. In such a situation there would not be a metro project in the city in the near future.
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