Pune: After continuous protests from the residents against construction of metro station at Phadke Houd Chowk, the MahaMetro has finally decided to shift PCMC-Swargate route’s underground station from Phadke Houd Chowk to Kasba Peth near Dadoji Konddev school area, where the school is not operational.
The underground metro route is aligned from the city’s densely populated areas such as Kasba Peth, Budhwar Peth and Mandai (vegetable market). The Budhwar Peth station was planned to be set near Phadke Houd Chowk which will now be shifted, while Mandai station will come up near new Mandai area.
According to Metro officials, there were about 250 families living and 25 shops in the Mandai and Budhwar Peth area along the underground stretch.
The MahaMetro planned to rehabilitate these families at Dadoji Konddev school area which is located in the Kasba Peth area. However, families denied rehabilitation and staged protests even though the area was hardly 500 metres away from the proposed Phadke Houd station.
The officials tried to convince these families from the last two years. However, It did not work out. So finally, MahaMetro decided to change the underground metro station from Phadke Houd Chowk to Konddev School area where the rehabilitation was planned initially.
MahaMetro Managing Director Brijesh Dikshit said, “Now, we have decided to shift the station but it is not going to affect the work of the original metro route. We tried giving the best deal to the families as per the right to fair compensation and transparency in land acquisition act, 2013. Despite that, the families refused to cooperate with us.”
He further added, “For Nagpur metro project, the project affected people also did the same thing. However, after a few days, the families realised that the deal was good. Hence, they went to the court and demanded that we rehabilitate them.”
