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Protect ‘Red Zone’, Shiv Sena urges Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chauhan

It has protested against massive construction undertaken by the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) in the zone, which is meant to provide a 2,000-yard buffer from the boundary of the ammunition depot.

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The Shiv Sena has urged chief minister Prithviraj Chavan to protect the prohibited ‘Red Zone’ area around the Dehu Road Ammunition Depot in national interest.

It has protested against massive construction undertaken by the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) in the zone, which is meant to provide a 2,000-yard buffer from the boundary of the ammunition depot.

As reported by DNA on Tuesday, the Sena’s Bhosari corporator, Seema Savale, used the Right to Information Act, 2005, to obtain documents and copies of letters by the army to the PCMC, urging it not to allow constructions in the prohibited area around the ammunition depot.

Sena’s group leader in the state legislature, Subhash Desai, sent a letter to Chavan on Wednesday seeking his intervention. He attached copies of letters by Major General Amit Sarin and the then defence minister, Pranab Mukherjee, with his letter about the serious issue of construction in the 2,000-yard prohibited ‘Red Zone’ around the ammunition depot.

Desai said the defence authorities have raised serious objections to the construction being allowed by the PCMC in the prohibited area and the chief minister should immediately take action in national interest.

Desai had earlier written to the chief minister about the PCMC’s slum rehabilitation scheme in Sector 22, Nigdi, within the jurisdiction of Pimpri-Chinchwad New Town Development Authority (PCNTDA).

In it he had pointed out (on February 11) that the PCMC made a serious violation of the Works of Defence Act, 1903, Environment Protection Act, 1986, and Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966, in the implementation of the project.

In its report on Wednesday (‘Sena uses RTI to expose violation around Dehu munitions depot’), DNA highlighted that despite the concerns raised by the Southern Command the PCMC has gone ahead with its huge construction project in the prohibited area.

Sena corporator Seema Savale pointed out that the letters obtained under the RTI make it clear that despite the warning from the army about possible security breach, the PCMC failed to prevent constructions in the notified area of up to 2,000 yard from the boundary of the depot.

Rather than preventing unauthorised construction, the PCMC itself undertook a major project of slum rehabilitation in Sector 22 of Nigdi, on the land which falls in the ‘Red Zone’, Savale said.

The PCMC has constructed 11,760 tenements in Sector 22 of Nigdi under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) scheme under the Jawaharlal Nehru national urban renewable mission (JNNURM), for which the Centre has allocated Rs225 crore.

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