House in Pune

Residents of Punawale village, which falls within the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation limits, on Wednesday staged a 15-minute rasta roko agitation on the Katraj-Dehu road bypass to demand the construction of a subway to enable citizens to safely cross the bypass.

Nationalist Congress Party corporator Ganesh Bhondwe, who led the agitation, said, “Villagers have been demanding that the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) construct a subway to give safe passage to villagers living along the bypass, where vehicles travel at great speed.”

Farms owned by villagers are located on the other side of the bypass, which is also used by Ravet residents going to Dehu road

Bhondwe and the villagers submitted a memorandum of their demand to Shankar Pawar, manager (technical), NHAI.

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The Pune district administration has tied up with the postal department to despatch domicile certificates directly to the addresses of applicants by speed post.

It would also set up special camps in schools for issue of domicile, non-creamy layer, income and caste certificates.

Issued at the citizen’s facilitation centre (CFC) at the collector’s office, these certificates are crucial for seeking admissions in colleges and professional courses.

Talking to reporters here on Tuesday, Deshmukh said, “Starting this year, the CFC will have a counter of the postal department. Candidates wishing to avail of the speed post services can register at that counter. The cost of the speed post will be borne by the applicant.”

The camps will be conducted on the weekends during April and May. A cluster of 10-15 schools would be taken every weekend, with the largest school in the area acting as the makeshift office.

More News: dnaindia

Residents in localities near Lakshminagar crossroads literally experienced Coleridge’s famous lines when drinking water gushed into their houses, after a pumping main burst in Attapur.

While many children saw their school buses come and go, they were unable to come out of their houses which were surrounded by two to three feet water. Some in their desperation jumped over their back wall to reach their exam centres.

“I was woken up by our tenant at 6.30 a.m after she found water coming into our drawing room. It was like a flowing river. She had heard about a water pipeline burst,” said Adeeb Unnisa, owner of a building near Lakshminagar crossroads. She and her tenants spent the better part of the day cleaning up the mess. She has made a CD of water entering their house on earlier occasions and plans to show it to officials. “We all helped two little children pass over a wall to make sure they reach their exam centre on time,” said Manal Ali, a fourth-grade student, who gave a miss to school on Friday. A few yards away, Mohd Shakir, an RTA agent sat drying application forms which he found submerged under four feet of water, after he opened his shop around 10 a.m. He was busy making arrangements to drain out the water.

More News: expressbuzz

Even as World Water Day will be celebrated on Tuesday, people from the cantonments in Pune, especially Khadki, are complaining of acute shortage of water which is compounded by a large number of unauthorised connections.

“The problem of frequent water cuts is rampant in the cantonment area. We don’t get water for more than 40-45 minutes during the day. Also, there is no regular time schedule for the water cuts,” said Pandurang Garsund, a civic activist from Khadki. He said people resort to drawing water from “unathorised connections.”

Residents of the Khadki and Pune cantonments say that the water shortage was so acute that the cantonment areas were getting water for not more than an hour.

More News: indianexpress