Will accidents jolt Pune Municipal Corporation out of slumber?

Will the deaths of two city residents on Monday evening in a road mishap on the Wakdewadi-Sadalbaba Link Road prove to be a wake up call for the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC)?

Despite repeated requests by the city traffic police, the civic body has failed miserably to put in place the infrastructure in place to regulate speed of vehicles on the 2.5-km-long road.

The former deputy commissioner of police (traffic), Manoj Patil, had sent two letters to the PMC requesting to set up speed breakers, street lights, traffic signals and road markings on that road to control the speed of vehicles.

Patil wrote the first letter 15 days before the road was thrown open for public use on February 2 this year. He had cautioned the PMC not to allow the movement of vehicles on that road unless the infrastructure was in place.

His second communique was a few days after motorists started using that road. He again requested the PMC to set up proper infrastructure on that road. The PMC apparently ignored the traffic police’s requests.

Driving on the 100-metre-wide road is a nightmare for motorists. Without speed breakers, street lights on a stretch of the road and other road infrastructure, some motorists resort to rash driving. What has further compounded the woes of commuters is that inter-city buses are parked on both sides of the road near the Wakdewadi end. Passengers boarding the buses
and vehicles parked near the buses complete motorists’ nightmare.
 

DNA highlighted the problems of users of that road since March this year — first in its March 3 edition (Rash driving on Wakdewadi-Sadalbaba Link Road is common; absence of speed-breakers & dividers adds to problem), its April 4 edition (Rough road lingers in darkness) and July 4 edition (PMC fails to install lights on the road linking Wakdewadi to Sadalbaba Dargah Chowk).

In April, PMC officials had assured that street lights would be in place within a month as a transformer is being procured from the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (MSEDCL). Sadly, so far nothing has happened. The traffic police inspector (administration), Vijaykumar Palsule, told DNA, “We have told the PMC not to allow parking of inter-city buses on the roadside.”