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indianexpress: WOMEN at their work place, while commuting in buses or walking on roads or at home are often subjected to harassment. To ascertain such harassment and to take appropriate action, the Pune Rural police is all set to conduct a survey armed with a questionnaire.

The step was decided upon after a survey last year conducted by the social security cell of Pune rural police. It covered the area under 28 police stations and concluded that there was eve teasing and harassment while travelling in the State Transport buses at Daund, Indapur, Bhor and Bhigwan were rampant.
 
“We had then sent squads to curb the menace. Some 110 cases were filed in each of these talukas,” said district superintendent of police Vishwas Nangre-Patil.

This time, to be more specific, the rural police has decided to conduct the survey with a more detailed questionnaire. A list of 30 questions has been designed with details like harassment at workplace, travelling in the State Transport or city transport buses or walking on the roads.

“For reaching out to rural women, details like harassment while working in fields has been listed. It will also try to check payment issues. Moreover, problems at home with husband, in-laws and neighbours have been included. We have also tried to check the possibility of harassment of women from people involved in selling illicit liquor in hamlets,” said a rural police official

indianexpress: Khadki stretch of the Pune-Mumbai highway that has claimed many lives over a decade, may be ready for a makeover with Pune Municipal Corporation evincing interest in taking it over from the Khadki Cantonment Board. Municipal Commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi, in one of the first initiatives after taking charge, said the PMC would have no problem in taking over the highway stretch for ensuring the safety of road users.

“We are ready to sign an agreement with the Khadki Cantonment Board so that we can take over the possession of the road. As per requirement, we would widen and re-lay the road surface to ensure smooth travelling,” Pardeshi said.
The proposal which is being readied will be sent to the KCB which in turn will forward it to the Southern Command.

The KCB too seems ready to find a solution to the long-pending issue, indicating its readiness to hand over the highway stretch if the PMC approaches it. Khadki cantonment executive officer G S Rajeswaran said, “We have already spent lakhs of rupees in repairing the potholed stretch. The complete re-doing of the stretch would require crores of rupees, which the cantonment board can’t afford. If PMC is willing to take over the road, we will have no problem in handing it over,” he said.

In the last two years, the nearly two-kilometre stretch - from Khadki railway station to the Assistant Commissioner of Police’s office - has proved to be the bane of many motorists. Last year, in June, there were 200 potholes and subsequently the road itself disintegrated following heavy rains.

The road was first with the State Government’s Public Works Department. Other than repairing the potholes after much public ire, the PWD did little. It cited lack of funds as the reason for not re-laying the road completely. The PWD then requested the KCB to take over the road, which it did two years ago but couldn’t do much for lack of funds.

The Khadki stretch sticks out like a sore thumb on the Pune-Mumbai highway passing through the limits of the Pune Municipal Corporation and the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation. While the PMC has widened and concretised the highway in its jurisdiction up to Wakdewadi and is till on the job, the PCMC too is in the process of completing the 61-metre highway widening up to Dapodi. The Khadki stretch, where nothing substantive has been done, is barely 30-35 metre wide.

indianexpress: THE traffic branch of the Pune Police has set up a unique computerised management system to curb growing incidents of traffic rule violations. The system called ‘I@ Police’ will issue computer generated notices to those violating traffic rules at the signals especially jumping signals.The system will be inaugurated by Pune Police Commissioner Jayant Umranikar on Tuesday.

The facility has been set up in a well-furnished room in the DCP (Traffic) office and has 10 computers sponsored by Cognizant Technology Systems. A special software for generating digital notices and keeping a sustained record of registered traffic offences has been installed by Meghasoft Information Technology.

“The software has been designed to store details of over 15 lakh vehicles. The vehicle data has been taken from the Regional Transport Office (RTO). Sharp digital cameras have been installed at prominent chowks to capture the image of the number plate of vehicles violating traffic rules especially signal jumping for a swift crackdown on the offenders,” managing director of Meghasoft Information Technology Manoj Naidu said.

The traffic department has also chalked out a plan in which registration numbers of the errant vehicles will be jotted by traffic cops. These numbers will be fed to the software which will register an offence and produce a printed notice.