Pune MoD approves bridge over Mula river

  • | Wednesday | 19th September, 2018

The MoD has yet to take a call on whether to accept the money or seek land in exchange for its land.Patil said, “The civic body has accepted the conditions. The deal is subject to the PCMC accepting 20 conditions put forth by the ministry.A senior defence estate official here told TOI, “The Southern Command has already approved a design of the bridge which the PCMC had submitted in 2017. The ministry has given a green signal to it. PUNE: A three-year struggle by Bopkhel’s residents for an easier access to the Khadki cantonment from their village avoiding a 10-km detour via Vishrantwadi is showing some results.The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has granted a conditional in-principle approval to the transfer of 16,122sqm of defence land to the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) for the construction of a permanent bridge across the Mula river to link Bopkhel with Khadki cantonment.The transfer of land will also facilitate an approach road to the bridge. Our endeavour is to commence and complete the bridge construction work at the earliest.”Another PCMC official said, “In case, the ministry does not accept the money, we will pay the same to the state government with a plea to provide a land parcel to the defence authorities.”Bopkhel village, with a population of 21,000 and located along Mula river was merged in the PCMC limits in 1997.

PUNE: A three-year struggle by Bopkhel’s residents for an easier access to the Khadki cantonment from their village avoiding a 10-km detour via Vishrantwadi is showing some results.The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has granted a conditional in-principle approval to the transfer of 16,122sqm of defence land to the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) for the construction of a permanent bridge across the Mula river to link Bopkhel with Khadki cantonment.The transfer of land will also facilitate an approach road to the bridge. The deal is subject to the PCMC accepting 20 conditions put forth by the ministry.A senior defence estate official here told TOI, “The Southern Command has already approved a design of the bridge which the PCMC had submitted in 2017. The ministry has given a green signal to it. Once the PCMC accepts the MoD’s conditions, the final sanction to transfer of land will be given for the project.”The MoD’s deputy director (lands), Ashok Kumar, issued the in-principle approval letter on August 23 to the chief of army staff and the director general of defence estates with a copy of the same issued to the Southern Command (lands division), the defence estate office, the PCMC and the Khadki cantonment board.The final sanction may still take some time to come considering as one of the MoD’s conditions is that the PCMC, in consultation with the local military authority, shall provide an equal value land in terms of the area of defence land proposed for transfer.“Since we do not have a land of equal value/are, we have conveyed to MoD that we will pay Rs 26 crore as the calculated value for the defence land,” PCMC’s joint city engineer Rajan Patil said on Tuesday. The MoD has yet to take a call on whether to accept the money or seek land in exchange for its land.Patil said, “The civic body has accepted the conditions. Our endeavour is to commence and complete the bridge construction work at the earliest.”Another PCMC official said, “In case, the ministry does not accept the money, we will pay the same to the state government with a plea to provide a land parcel to the defence authorities.”Bopkhel village, with a population of 21,000 and located along Mula river was merged in the PCMC limits in 1997. It is surrounded by the defence land of College of Military Engineering on three sides and Mula river on the fourth.Earlier, it was linked to the Pune-Mumbai highway at Dapodi through a 2.25km road passing through the defence land of CME.Till May 2015, Bopkhel villagers had a easier access from the village to Dapodi via the College of Military Engineering (CME) campus.However, the CME closed this road after Bombay high court ruled in favour of such closure owing to security reasons and dismissed a petition filed by the villagers against the road closure.The villagers have since been seeking a bridge across the Mula river to avoid the circuitous route.The defence authorities erected a pontoon bridge on Mula river in June 2015 to provide access to the residents of Bopkhel to Khadki.But they removed it on June 7, 2016, again citing safety issues.The PCMC had, in April 2016, approved the construction of a 192m bridge along with approach roads measuring 547m (215m from Bopkhel and 332m from Khadki).The length of the bridge was increased to 1,040m after the irrigation department said there must be no abutment of the bridge and filling in the blue floodline.

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