Bhimashankar highway stalled for 20 years while trees cleared for Torrent, says Uday Patil

Work on the Bhimashankar highway passing through Karjat taluka has been stalled for 20 years. Uday Patil says trees are said to be obstructing the road and the forest department does not grant permission. His direct question is why the forest department did not see the trees at Saydongar when the dam for Torrent was being built.

The ghat road connecting Panvel, Nere, Kashele, Bhimashankar and Manchar is approved in the state government's 1980 road development plan, to bring Pune district closer to Mumbai. The foundation stone for the work on this road, which passes through the Bhimashankar ghat, was laid in 2009 by Sunil Tatkare, then finance minister. It was said that the road would cut the distance from Mumbai to Shirur by 60 km. Savings in time and fuel, and the resulting reduction in pollution, made the road seen as very important for everyone.

The road passes through 4.5 km of forest department land. For this, the public works department bought land at Kolad and gave it to the forest department. It also paid the full cost of fencing the site, planting trees and keeping them alive. Even so, the department has been taking years to meet the forest department's many strict conditions.

The public works department sanctioned funds for the road and work also began. But the forest department then refused permission for the ghat road work. Since then the department has been making rounds of Nagpur and Bhopal, yet the forest department has not granted permission. The discovery of a rare animal called shekharu in this forest brought new restrictions.

On the whole, this highway, which people need and which would save the government thousands of crores of rupees in fuel, has not been built to date. The MP for the area is Shrirang Barne, and Sunil Tatkare, at whose hands the foundation stone was laid, is now an MP.

According to Patil, Pali Saydongar lies only two to four km beyond the road that the forest department has held up for 25 years. Permission to fell lakhs of trees over hundreds of acres in the forest of the same hill range was granted within a month. Hundreds of trees have already been cut in the presence of forest department officials.

Uday Patil said plainly that the forest department immediately gives a private industrialist permission to cut about a lakh trees, while a government road is held up for 25 years. According to him, the government is imposing on the public a project it does not want, and Karjat taluka opposes this policy of the government.