'Stop road widening project near the College of Engineering, Pune'

Even as the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has started work on a road widening project near the College of Engineering, Pune (CoEP), the institute’s director, Anil Sahasrabudhe made an appeal to Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar to save the institute from losing its land.

Once the road widening project is completed, vehicular traffic would reach the doorstep of the 150-year-old heritage building.

While the 100-year-old buildings housing departments of mechanical engineering, electronics, telecommunications and computers will touch the road, the side entrance to the metallurgy department would have to be closed.

The library and the auditorium would also move closer to the road, thereby spoiling the quiet atmosphere on the campus.

“When the CoEP started 150 years ago, its campus stretched beyond 100 acres. In the later years, the institution’s land was taken away for many developmental projects like railway tracks, highway projects and river development works. Now, they want to widen the road near the CoEP and reduce the size of the campus further,” lamented Sahasrabudhe.

“In other parts of the country, heritage institutions are given land for development. But in our case, the area is shrinking every year. We do not want to lose any more land,” he said.

Sahasrabudhe suggested to Pawar that instead of constructing a flyover, an underpass should be created to manage the traffic situation as well as to protect the heritage structure.