Pune Infra Watch: Green Pune Movement challenges PMC report on proposed Balbharati-Paud Phata Road

The GPM, a group of environmentalists, activists and citizens, has hit out at the PMC alleging that it has sidelined members of a Bombay High Court-appointed expert committee, disregarded objective expert opinions and manipulated important reports to get necessary clearances for the proposed road, which the civic body says will decongest traffic on Law College Road and reduce air pollution.

In a communication, the GPM said that under the directions of the Bombay High Court-appointed expert committee, the PMC appointed three consultants for a pre-feasibility report: Sustainancy Consultants for a traffic study, V K Environment for an environmental impact assessment (EIA) study and Envirosafe for a detailed project report (DPR).

The design of the proposed Balbharati-PaudPhata link road.

“Since these reports were funded by public money and the project too will be at public expense, the reports by all three consultants should have been open to scrutiny by concerned citizens. Sadly, PMC deliberately kept these reports hidden from the public eye. The reports had to be gotten through RTI. We have carefully studied and analysed the data by drawing on a range of expertise generously offered by qualified fellow concerned citizens,” the GPM said.

The GPM has alleged that the court-appointed expert committee members were sidelined, objective expert opinions were disregarded and important reports were manipulated. “In light of this, it is becoming increasingly important to put all EIAs, feasibility reports, traffic studies etc through public scrutiny, especially for cases like the proposed Balbharati Road, where, much like in the Joshimath case, opinions of the two independent members of the court-appointed expert committee have been completely ignored, and when the project involves a valuable natural resource and heritage site like Vetal Tekdi,” the GPM said.

A small dialogue was held by VKe in 2019, without public notice and corporators favouring the road were given maximum talk time and stakeholders, like people from Kelewadi slums, who stand to lose their homes and livelihoods if this road is built, were not even invited, the GPM alleged.

“There is a mismatch in traffic data mentioned in reports by different consultants. How can there be a mismatch in numbers when they are all from the same survey conducted by Sustainancy Consultants,” GPM asked. “On what data did PMC approve the Balbharati Road in August 2021?”

The revised origin-destination data was not incorporated in the PMC’s final report in January 2023 and does not seem to have been included in any of the final reports by the consultants, the GPM further said.

An aerial pic of the alignment of the proposed Balbharati-PaudPhata Link Road.

In a communication to PMC, the GPM said the small shift of vehicles on the proposed 1.8 km long, 30 m wide road at a cost of Rs 250 crore will permanently destroy a large slice of a hill slope containing an urban forest and an important groundwater recharge area, as attested by the groundwater survey in the EIA.

“It is indeed shocking that your own ecological survey notes that more than half the alignment is through a high and moderate priority conservation area, yet you conclude that most of the area is not ecologically significant. One can only question why the environmental impact of this road has been downplayed in your main report,” the activists said.

Meanwhile, court-appointed expert committee member Prashant Inamdar has raised objections to the PMC report on the project. In a communication to the Pune municipal commissioner on January 13, Inamdar said, “In the absence of any rational explanation for the abnormal steep increase in the number of vehicles on Balbharati Road as per the additional survey conducted for the DPR,  I am constrained to say that this appears to be a manipulation done to show increased usage of Balbharati Road and reduced congestion on Law College Road.”

The GPM said that it will be putting the three reports and its analysis in the public domain. “We have grave concerns that the Balbharati Road will be disastrous for Pune, causing not only serious environmental damage but also additional traffic problems,” it said, adding if this road is built, it would be done by overriding the objections of thousands of Punekars who petitioned the PMC against including it in the Development Plan.