Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) finally approved martyr Saurabh Pharate memorial in Phursungi villager near canal area garden in a General Body meeting on Thursday. 

The proposal was pending since last year and Pharate’s parents had also gone on a hunger strike for speedy approval of the memorial’s proposal and starting the work for the same. 

The then city mayor, Prashant Jagtap of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), had announced building the memorial in Hadapsar in 2016. Local corporators of Hadapsar ward had suggested four places for the memorial but nothing was done. There are four corporators who represent ward of Hadapsar Goathan-Satavwadi. Two from BJP - Ujwala Jangale and Maruti Tupe and remaining from the NCP - former mayor Vaishali Banker and Yogesh Sasane.

Finally, Saurbah’s mother Mangal and father Nandkumar sat on a two-day hunger strike pressurising the administration to take a final call on the issue. The issue has been pending for more than a year as the place for the memorial was not finalised. After written assurance of Shrinath Bhimale, the parents called off their hunger strike on March 6, 2018.
According to corporation officials, last year, there was no provision of funds for the memorial. This year, there is around Rs 1 crore of allocation in the 2018-19 budget.

On December 17, 2016, 33-year-old Pharate, along with two other jawans, died when motorcycle-borne militants fired on an Army bus in Pampore on the outskirts of Srinagar. Saurabh is survived by his wife, twin daughters and parents.