Pune: Pimpri Chinchwad municipal commissioner Shekhar Singh and traffic police officials visited Punawale underpass , near Mumbai-Bangalore highway, to review the situation on Friday following complaints from citizens regarding heavy traffic snarls in the area for the past few days. Local MLA Ashwini Jagtap and other local leaders were present during the joint visit. The residents have been demanding a solution to traffic jams on the stretch.
The municipal commissioner said that several issues have been identified and the civic body was working with the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to implement a long-term solution. "For an immediate solution, we have planned to remove encroachments and some public utilities, such as distribution panels (DP), which are blocking the road. Besides, additional traffic wardens will be deployed during peak hours to manage traffic," Singh said.
He said that the civic body was working with NHAI on several long-term plans under which the service road passing through the PCMC limits would be widened on both sides. Chetan Bhujbal, a resident of Punawale, said, "The road leads to heavy traffic jams during peak hours every day and often citizen groups join the traffic police to manage traffic. I have offered my own land for shifting the distribution panels so that the problem can be solved to some extent.
" Sintu Singh, a resident of Gaikwadnagar, said the situation worsens during the monsoon as it often takes more than two hours to cross the stretch when it is raining. "My office is located in Ravet, around 4 km from my house but it takes an hour for me to reach there daily due to heavy traffic congestion at Punawale underpass. We have been facing this problem for the last one year and it gets worse on weekends.
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