‘Will stop all new construction in Pune if water issue not solved’

The Bombay HC on Fri day warned of halting all new constructions in Pune, because its civic body lacked a proper method to distribute water within the Pune Municipal Cor poration (PMC) limits.

“If the corporation fails to come up with a proper explana tion, we will have to restrain it from granting permissions for any new constructions,” said the division bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and justice Gir ish Kulkarni while hearing a PIL about water shortage in the Bale wadi and Baner areas. It directed PMC to file an affidavit detailing number of new constructions for which permissions were given the number of flats in those con structions, likely increase in pop ulation in these areas because of these constructions, minimal water requirement and what PMC proposes to do to meet it.

The PIL was filed by a 29-year old businessman, Amol Balwad kar, who said the city has wit nessed rapid growth years and an exponential rise in population As a consequence, the limits of the corporation expanded to include the Baner and Balewad localities. Balwadkar said though the civic body has granted permissions for hundreds of con structions, basic facilities for ade quate water supply have been provided. Housing societies spend huge amounts for tanker water. The judges were irked as permissions were being granted “Don’t just think about revenue think about basic requirements of residents,” the bench said.