After SC dismisses review petition, PCMC gets ready to raze 34 illegal bungalows in Chikhli

Indian Express

12-05-2025

THE Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) will finally demolish the 34 illegal structures in Chikhli area which had been constructed in the blue flood line area of the Indrayani river flowing through its jurisdiction. The decision has been taken after the Supreme Court dismissed a review petition filed by 29 residents.
'We have a received the copy of the Supreme Court order. We will now decide the date of demolition after discussing with the police as we will need police security for the action,' PCMC city engineer Makrand Nikam told The Indian Express on Monday. The hearing in the matter was held on May 5 and the Supreme Court passed the order on May 9.
Nikam said they had decided to demolish the structures last year but since the residents had filed a review petition in the Supreme Court after the National Green Tribunal order and had stayed the civic action, they waited for the outcome of the court hearing.
'In all, there are 34 illegal structures which are constructed within the blue flood line of the Indrayani river. Twenty-nine residents had approached the Supreme Court. We will be demolishing all the 34 structures,' Nikam said.
When asked as to why the PCMC didn't take action when it knew that the structures were coming up close to the river, Nikam said,'When we realised that the structures were being constructed within the blue flood line, we had served notices to the residents. But the residents pleaded that we should not act against them on humanitarian grounds…Finally, the matter went to the National Green Tribunal, which on July 2, 2024, directed the removal of these structures.'
Mahesh Patil, one of the aggreived residents, said, 'As per our information, the Maharashtra Water Resources Ministry has directed the PCMC to conduct a fresh survey of the blue flood line. However, the PCMC is refusing to conduct a fresh survey. We have been pointing out that the blue flood line has been wrongly marked. Not just our own structures, there are hundreds of structures which are in the blue flood line as per the current markings. Even PCMC's own sewage treatment plant is in the blue flood line. Then why is the PCMC targeting only us ?'
On being questioned about this, Nikam said, 'We recently held a meeting with officials of the Water Resources Department. They didn't ask us to conduct a fresh survey. They said whatever is mentioned on their website vis-a-vis blue flood line is final. As for the STPs coming within the blue flood line, we are allowed to construct them as per norms.'
Last year, when the NGT bench directed the removal of the structures, it also imposed a fine of Rs 5 crore on the property owners as environmental damage compensation. 'The builder will have to pay this compensation. If he refuses to pay, we will have to approach the courts again,' said Patil.
Patil said the Supreme Court has given a six months' deadline. 'We are hoping that PCMC would not immediately carry out the action till our demand for a re-survey of the blue flood line is met. If in the re-survey, our structures are found to be illegal, we will ourselves demolish them. We still feel some of our structures will be saved once the a fresh round of survey is done,' he said.
Stating that residents had put in their hard earned money in the project, Patil said, 'We have constructed the structures on one or two gunthas of land. We are from middle class and poor middle-class families. We have put in all our hard earned money in the project with the hope of owning our dream houses. Now, our dreams are on the verge of being shattered. We have no clue what to do in the current circumstances.' The project, River Villa, was set up by VSquare in 2021.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
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