News

IndianExpress: The transport corporations of Pune and Pimpri-Chichwad have other issues on their agenda. For example, they are still mulling a 32-year-old merger proposal that would streamline public road transport between the two regions.

The first report suggesting the merger of the two transport bodies (PMT and PCMT) was presented a good 32 years back in 1974.

Called the Sathe Commission report, it stated that the PMC and PCMC areas could not be kept separate with regard to movement of people. Therefore, the commission called for the amalgamation of the two transport bodies. Subsequently there were six more reports recommending the same thing. There were also other like recommendations from the two municipal corporations. None were heeded.

IndianExpress: The Habitat for Humanity and Maval-based SAMPARC (Social Action for Manpower Creation) on Saturday, signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) to build 100 pucca houses in Balgram Village, Malavali, under the Jimmy Carter Work Project 2006 in November.

The houses — costing Rs 2.25 lakh each, are designed in a way that they can be built in a span of a week — will be constructed by volunteers of the project and those who will eventually get the houses. The beneficiaries, selected on the basis of their ability to repay the non-profit mortgage, are members of Abhinav Cooperative Credit Society, an arm of SAMPARC which runs self help groups in the area.

IndianExpress: Although the road department of the Pune Municipal Corporation worked overnight to meet the deadline issued by Mayor Rajni Tribhuvan to fill potholes in the city, it could not do so. While Tribhuvan’s threat to resign ended on Saturday, the city remained ridden with potholes. The Mayor, meanwhile, appeared to be in no mood to resign.

One did not have to go far too to find the bad condition of the roads. The city’s entry point— Pune Station continued to greet people with potholes. The same was the condition of the roads elsewhere, the widely used Rajaram bridge, the concretised Mumbai-Pune highway opposite Patil estate and the road in Somwar Peth opposite State Bank of India Treasury Branch, to name a few.
 

IndianExpress: Education and Human Resource Development will play a crucial role in the development of India as an economic super power,’’ said Pune University Vice-Chancellor Narendra Jadhav, speaking to compere Vinita Apte at ‘Manmukh Gappa’, an interview organised by Maitree Foundation.

Jadhav, who also holds the post of Chief Economist and Executive Director at the Reserve Bank of India, recalling his days working as a ghostwriter, drafting speeches for governors in the RBI said: ‘‘Being a ghostwriter, I didn’t get credit for what I did, but through the vast experience and wisdom that I gathered, I got much more.’’

IndianExpress: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has been dragged to court again over the poor city road conditions.

Jana Adalat Centre For Para Legal Services & Legal Aid has filed a civil case against the Pune Municipal Corporation in the court of a Civil Judge, Senior Division. Jana Adalat centre secretary Vinayak Tajane said the case was scheduled to come up for hearing on Monday.

Tajane said the case was filed because the residents were suffering as many roads in the city were full of potholes. He said the poor road conditions caused backache and respiratory diseases, while some lives had also been lost.

IndianExpress:  Of late, Pune’s divisional commissioner Prabhakar Karandikar seems to have taken a liking for the private sector.
Perhaps it was the 10 years that he spent in the industrial department that has given him a taste for the corporate life, as opposed to the government one that he has been leading for the last 33 years.

Even if it means inviting some raised hackles and eyebrows in the bargain as was evident with the reactions Karandikar’s case evoked ever since his application asking three years leave from his duties as an IAS officer, to enable him to join the Mahindra & Mahindra Group as advisor, reached the Mantralaya this month.