Cabinet clears 946.73 cr Pimpri-Chinchwad-Nigdi elevated metro corridor

Work on the risk analysis has begun and report will be ready by June 2021

The Maharashtra Cabinet on Wednesday approved the Pimpri-Chinchwad-Nigdi elevated Metro corridor I with the proposed investment of Rs 946.73 crore. The state government’s outgo will be Rs 170.3 crore comprising equity worth Rs 79.4 crore and Rs 90.63 crore towards debt repayment.

The proposed corridor will be 4.41 km with three stations. The project involves development of internodal integration, stations, a pedestrian bridge, system and tracks, depot and parking. The project will be implemented by the Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation which is a special purpose vehicle which is a is a 50:50 jointly owned company of Government of India and Government of Maharashtra.

The Centre will contribute 10% equity in the project and also provide loan for the proposed corridor.

The project is expected to be complete in 2023 with daily commuters of 4.95 lakh.

The standing committee of the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation had granted its go ahead in December 2018. Thereafter, the state government in February 2019 had given approval for the extension of the metro route in Pune up to Nigdi. Thereafter, the Centre was to clear the detailed project report prepared by the Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation. The cabinet gave its clearance after the Centre’s green signal.

Among the highly vulnerable cities to major natural and man-made disasters, Mumbai has experienced several disastrous weather events within the past decade and half that brought the city to a standstill, causing severe human and economic losses. In response to this the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has initiated a disaster risk assessment to enable Mumbai to prepare to tackle such disasters.

Civic officials work on the same has already begun and the report will be ready by June 2021. For the fiscal 2021-22, the civic body has planned to carry out three types of work – Seismic Microzonation, Tsunami Atlas and Hazard Vulnerable

Risk Assessment (HVRA) – in the city, for which a budget provision of Rs 18.26 crore has been made during the Budget announced on February 3. "Yes, we have begun disaster risk analysis and the work to study potential hazards will be carried out under this," said Suresh Kakani, Additional Municipal Commissioner.

While through Seismic Microzonation they will mostly study the effects of earthquakes and come up with mitigation measures, the HVRA will mainly deal with data of natural and man-made disasters and how the city can be prepared for it. Besides, the civic body also plans to set up disaster control rooms at 13 municipal hospitals to get real-time update during an emergency.

These control rooms will provide information related to casualties admitted during emergency situations to the main control room. The control rooms will also monitor and deal with law and order issues at the hospitals and communicate the same to the concerned agencies like police and BMC.

The existing Disaster Risk Management Master Plan of Mumbai includes issues related to mitigation plan for water logging, severe flooding, landslides and building collapses. However HVRA would help the BMC find out city's vulnerability to natural disasters like earthquake and how they can be dealt with keeping in mind the population density of the city. For instance, if a particular area is prone to earthquakes, then the buildings there will be constructed or re-developed in a way that minimal or no damage is sustained, Kakani said.

A special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court on Monday extended the judicial custody of Omkar Group’s promoters Babulal Verma and Kamalkishore Gupta and said the question of releasing them on a bond as sought, does not arise.

On Monday, when their judicial custody had ended, their advocate Vijay Agarwal had filed a plea to release them forthwith on executing a bond. The plea was based on a closure report filed by the City Chowk police station, Aurangabad in an FIR by the complainant which had led to the ED’s investigation in the matter by registering a separate complaint. The closure report contained an affidavit filed by the complainant that the matter is amicably settled and the FIR was lodged on a misunderstanding. The judicial officer had accepted the closure report by a February 12, order. Agarwal had argued that now that the FIR does not exist, the accused cannot be remanded in judicial custody.

Special judge Abhijeet A. Nandgaonkar said in his order that though the scheduled offence is compounded, it cannot overrule the authority of the special court under PMLA to make further progress in the offence of money laundering when it was prima facie brought on record. “..definitely pruning of one branch does ot shrivel the whole tree,” the court said. It added that the act committed under the PMLA is a distinct offence. “Therefore, accepting C summary final report or compounding of scheduled offence will not give automatic nullification of acts done by the accused under PMLA,” it said.

The court opined that despite the acceptance of closure report by magistrate, the further progress of investigation in the present ED complaint cannot be cut off at this primary/nascent stage.

Stating that their custody has to be extended if there are reasons to believe that allegations are well-founded, it said it has no hesitation to extend their custody till ED files its chargesheet.