Civic chief slaps show-cause notices on engineers for not repairing potholes

Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal commissioner Shrikar Pardeshi has issued show cause notices to city engineer, executive engineer, deputy engineer and junior engineer for not repairing the potholes on Pune-Mumbai highway. Citizens have lodged several complaints about these potholes causing traffic delays and accidents.

The engineering department has failed to carry out the order given by Pardeshi a month ago to carry out pothole repairs along the grade separators on an urgent basis.

The commissioner’s notice mentions the reason for issuing notices as ‘insensitivity’ of engineers towards citizen safety, disobeying the civic chief’s order to carry out repairs and carelessness in doing their duty.

In fact, the commissioner was unsatisfied by the reply sent by officials. On October 24, Pardeshi had resent the engineers a written notice while asking the administration department to keep a record in the registrar book about the remarks.

It also mentions that if in future these four engineering officials are found to neglect their duty towards citizen safety then PCMC will take strict action against them.

On September 17, a two-wheeler rider lost his life in an accident near the grade separator. The pothole issue had even led to stormy discussions during the general body meeting held in July and August.

Besides corporators demanding immediate road repair, deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar during his visit on August 11 had ordered Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) to maintain the roads along grade separators on Pune-Mumbai highway.

Pardeshi issued the show cause notices after the engineering department failed to carry our road repairs despite the civic chief, along with joint city engineer Rajan Patil, executive engineer Shrikant Savane, deputy engineer Pradeep Pujari and junior engineer Chandrashekhar Dhanorkar had inspected the grade separators about a month and four days ago.