First day, flop show of Pune pre-monsoon work

Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation had pending road work even after setting a deadline of May 31 to finish pre-monsoon work. Now, after Wednesday’s downpour water logging was witnessed in several areas as road work was still going on. 

        J.M. road  is yet to be completed, making it difficult to park along it. 

Thursday was a tough day for commuters. Main roads at Kothrud, Jungli Maharaj Road, Vimannagar, Koregaon Park, Hadapsar, Karvenagar, Bund Garden area witnessed waterlogging. 
Prutha Deshmukh, a 25-year-old student said, “I was out in the morning taking a drive to Mhatre Bridge via Parvati. I had to drive very slowly near Neelayam Bridge as there was water logging and there were potholes. PMC should have repaired the roads much earlier.”

PMC had set a deadline of May 31 for finishing all the pre-monsoon work which includes road repair work, road re-surfacing, cleaning of nullahs, storm water drainages and road-digging. The civic administration also claimed they had completed the work within the deadline. However, Wednesday night’s rain proved otherwise. 
Apart from water logging, there was no electricity at some areas of Deccan and Peth areas. Traffic signals at various chowks stopped working from Wednesday night and they were not working even on Thursday due to which there were traffic jams at JM Road, Paud Road and Mhatre Bridge. 
Tanvi Boralkar, a 24-year-old IT professional, said, “Because of the rains, there were electricity problems at my office which is located at JM Road. After reaching the office, I was told that there will be no electricity till 6 pm.” 
According to the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) officials, “A total of 11 electricity towers of the Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company Limited (MSETCL) which supplies electricity to Pune and surrounding areas collapsed on Wednesday due to incessant rain due to which the city faced a shortage of 1,200 MW. Due to the electricity shortage, Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad areas faced load shedding on Thursday.”
When dna tried contacting Pramod Nirbhavane, head of the road department of Pune Municipal Corporation, regarding the unfinished work, he was not available for comment.