Pune's Pradhikaran area roads to get Rs86 crore makeover

The Pimpri Chinchwad New Town Development Authority (PCNTDA) on Thursday presented its Rs481.14-crore budget for 2013-14. The focus is on completing pending projects and road development with Rs86 crore marked for the latter. The budget has a surplus of Rs53.13 crore.

PCNTDA chief executive officer Dr Yogesh Mhase presented the budget to PCNTDA president Prabhakar Deshmukh. Deshmukh said, “Our major focus is on completing pending projects of the previous year. They are pending as the authority had only seven months to implement last year’s budget . This time, PCNTDA has focused on road development work with a provision of Rs86 crore.”

He added, “The road development work will be carried out in association with the commissioner of Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC). Road development is delayed due to lack of communication between the two authorities. In Pimpri-Chinchwad, PCMC and PCNTDA both are the authorities for developing roads.”

Explaining why the projects were delayed, Mhase said, “The pendency was because the work of building permission, completion certificates and other work had to be stopped due to the red zone issue. There was delay in presenting the budget last year so we got only seven months to implement it.”

Mhase said that as per rules, the budget should be presented before December 31 and sent to the state authority for final approval before March 31.