Pune: The Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) on Thursday demolished 43 structures spread over 38,750sqft at Kala Khadak in Wakad to facilitate the widening of the proposed 18-metre-wide development plan (DP) road connecting Bhumkar Chowk to Tathawade. A senior PCMC official stated that around 200 metres of the stretch had been encroached upon by slum dwellings and other unauthorised structures, which were removed during the demolition drive.Makarand Nikam, the city engineer and the head of the PCMC’s building permission and unauthorised construction control department, said the existing road on the stretch was narrow because of the encroachments, causing heavy congestion in the area, particularly during the peak hours.Bhumkar Chowk is one of the key junctions leading to the Hinjewadi IT Park and a large number of IT professionals take this route to reach their workplaces. Earlier this year, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and deputy CM Ajit Pawar held meetings with the IT professionals and officials concerned over the traffic and infrastructure problems in the IT hub following complaints from tech professionals. Both the leaders instructed civic officials to upgrade the infrastructure, after which PCMC began taking measures in their limits to ease traffic on the access roads to the IT Park.In July, the civic body also cleared 96 slum hutments in the same locality to facilitate the widening of the 45-metre road connecting the Aundh BRTS corridor with the Y junction in Hinjewadi. PCMC commissioner Shekhar Singh told TOI that the civic body already started construction of the 45-metre road, and works for the 18-metre road would begin soon.The slum dwellers were shifted to transit camps as they were already allotted residences under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) schemes. They would be shifted to their new residences once the project was completed. “The new DP road proposed on this stretch will solve traffic issues around Bhumkar Chowk to a large extent and further towards IT Park,” Singh told TOI, adding that PCMC was also working on more bottlenecks in the area and similar action was planned there as well.Singh said Bhumkar Chowk was among the 25 traffic bottlenecks identified jointly by the civic body and police. Last month, both agencies drew up a decongestion plan for the junction, of which clearing slum encroachments for road widening at Kala Khadak was a key step. He said traffic changes, such as introducing one-ways and restricting U-turns at some points, would be implemented soon, with further adjustments based on the initial results.
