PUNE: Taking an initiative to resolve the issues that have been close to the hearts of millions of Punekars right from ‘health to transport’, the Sakal Media Group (SMG) will run a campaign ‘Happy Pune, Healthy Pune’. The campaign will kick-start on December 22 and has been envisioned for the next five years.
SMG recently organised a meeting attended by Managing Director Abhijit Pawar, MP Girish Bapat, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) Additional Commissioner Rubal Agarwal, PMRDA Commissioner Vikram Kumar, Chief Engineer Vivek Kharwadkar, DCP (Traffic) Pankaj Deshmukh, Regional Transport Officer (RTO) Ajit Shinde, Pune Metro Consultant Shashikant Limaye, Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Limited Joint Managing Director Ajay Charthankar, Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation Executive Engineer Shirish Poredi, transport expert Prasanna Patwardhan and Prajanjali Agashe, retired town planning officer Ramchandra Gohad, railway expert Dilip Bhat and Vivek Khare, Parisar Project Director Ranjeet Gadgil and Save Pune Traffic Movement’s Harshad Abhyankar.
There are many issues which plague Punekars and to resolve them, Sakal has taken a lead. To achieve the goal, various stakeholders including government, NGO’s vis-a-vis the residents must join hands.
Sakal feels that Punekars must be ‘Happy and Healthy’ and thus has planned various programmes that will be implemented in the next five years. First among then will be a marathon which will take place on December 22, this year. The meeting appealed to Punekars to participate in the marathon in large numbers.
If the transport system in the city improves, only then, the pollution level can be kept under control and in turn keep the residents healthy. Thus, there is an urgent need in the improvement of public transport in the city, opined the experts during the meeting. The ‘Pune Bus Day’ implemented by Sakal in 2012 in association with PMPML, PMC and residents was a huge success.
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Girish Bapat: We will work on space to be provided for PMPML buses.
Shirish Poredi: Need a bridge to join Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad for HCMTR project.
Rubal Agarwal: Will think over the bridge for HCMTR project.
Ajay Charthankar: If we increase the number of buses, we will need more bus depots. If the bus depots given by PMC and PCMC are used on commercial basis, then we can park 400 buses. The PMC does not allot lands for parking of PMPML buses.
