The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has constructed road dividers on Bhau Patil Road in Bopodi at a cost of approximately Rs. 35 lakh. Residents welcome the road dividers as the busy road had become extremely hazardous for pedestrians, especially senior citizens, women, and children to cross previously due to a lack of dividers. Some work remains to be completed, including resurfacing the road and replacing street lights. The PMC also plans to plant rain trees along the sides of the road and establish pedestrian crossings. Residents and local businesses express support for the project but urge the PMC to speed up completion and place caution signs during ongoing work due to some minor accidents.

1. Pune,May 8, 2010 STRIKING NUMBER
PUNE 35
lakh rupees is the expenditure incurred by
the Pune Municipal Corporation on
constructing the road dividers 02
www.dnaindia.com, epaper.dnaindia.com
Residents welcome dividers on Serum to begin final trial
of injectable H1N1 vaccine
BHAU PATIL ROAD
Pedestrians used
A US laboratory
has been chosen
to find it difficult to conduct the
to cross the process this week
thoroughfare Nilanjana Ghosh Choudhury
Abhay Khairnar Pune-based Serum Institute of In-
dia (SII) would begin the final test
It could be music to the ears of of its injectable H1N1 vaccine at
the Pune Municipal Corpora- a laboratory in the US this week.
tion (PMC), as the residents liv- The company is slated to
ing near Bhau Patil Road in launch the vaccine by May-end.
Bopodi have complimented the The test refers to the final duct the tests in the US instead would also be completed in India
civic body for constructing road phase when samples from volun- of India, Dr Kulkarni said, “The after which the final reports
teers’ bodies are taken to see what laboratories in United States are would be given to the Drugs Con-
antibodies they have developed well equipped to carry out such troller General of India (DCGI)
DNA had taken the after being administered the tests in a better way Several oth-
. for its final approval. Thereafter,
vaccine. er global pharmaceutical compa- the vaccines would be launched
initiative to However, the follow up for the nies are also carrying out their in the market,” Dr Kulkarni said.
highlight the issue intranasal variety of vaccine is trials there.” The company, which had al-
being done at the National Insti- He declined to divulge any de- ready invested Rs50 crore in a
of pedestrian safety The construction work of road dividers is in its final stages —Ravindra Joshi.DNA tute of Virology (NIV) in Pune tails about the laboratory in the new plant at its Hadapsar facility
on the road and and other laboratories. US where the company would be for manufacturing the H1N1
published the Citizen’s voice “We have completed two phas-
es of trials for both the intranasal
carrying out the trials.
Over 300 people in three age
nasal vaccine and the injectable
one, has decided to pump in an-
first article on and injectable varieties simulta- groups — paediatric, adult and other Rs120 crore in the project.
March 11, 2009 Savita Lade (Resident from the area) Milind Gaikwad (Infosys employee & a resident of Bopodi) neously The follow up of the in-
. elderly — were enrolled for the The current facility at SII is ca-
tranasal vaccine is currently go- nasal drop vaccine trials in Pune, pable of manufacturing nearly 50
It is good that the PMC has The setting up of road ing on in India. However, for the Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Indore, million nasal doses and 1.2 mil-
dividers on the busy thorough- erected road dividers on the dividers is really a welcome injectable variety we will send Bangalore and Chennai. The lion injectable doses annually .
fare at a cost of about Rs35 lakh. busy road. It had become move. The mishaps would be the samples to a US-based labo- same numbers were identified for SII executive director Adar
The road, which is about two really difficult for us to cross reduced to a great ratory where the tests would be the injectable variety also. Poonawalla told DNA that the
kilometres long, had become ex- the road. In fact, we had to extent. Since there were conducted,” SII additional “It will take about two to three vaccine would be priced between
tremely hazardous for pedestri- scamper lest we meet with no road dividers, medical director Dr Prasad weeks to complete the trials and Rs150 and Rs200 which is almost
ans, especially senior citizens, accidents. Now, it would be drivers would take turns Kulkarni said. around the same time the follow one third of the cost of the
women and children to cross safer for us to cross the road. from anywhere disturbing On the company’s plan to con- up with the intranasal variety vaccines launched globally .
since it was bereft of road The mishaps on the road would reduce. the flow of traffic.
dividers.
IT firm donates Rs2 lakh to
DNA had taken the initiative
to highlight the issue of pedes-
trian safety on the road and pub- Vishal Sharma (Shop owner on Bhau Patil Road) Pratik Rangwala (Regular visitor and Airtel employee)
lished the first article on March We appreciate the PMC’s It is good that the PMC has
11, 2009. Later, another article
appeared in the newspaper on
the same issue.
After these articles were pub-
decision to establish road
dividers but the work is pro-
gressing slowly. The civic
body must speed up things.
erected road dividers. As the
width of the road is narrow,
the civic body and the traffic
autorickshaw driver’s widow
lished, the Aundh regional ward police must start taking DNA Correspondent collected Rs75,000. Meanwhile, the
office and local corporator Moreover, it should have put strong action against management also showed their
Srikant Patil vowed that road up boards cautioning the unauthorised parking on The employees and management willingness to help Pansare’s fam-
divers would be erected. pedestrians and motorists the road, especially by the of SG Analytics Private Limited — ily After discussions, the manage-
.
Over 70% of the work for con- about the work that is being undertaken. There owners of four-wheelers who park their an IT company— has donated Rs2 ment contributed Rs1, 25,000 and
structing the road dividers be- have been 3 - 4 minor accidents due to the vehicles in a haphazard manner in the lakh to the widow of autorickshaw placed the amount in a fixed de-
tween Babasaheb Ambedkar ongoing work, mainly at night. peak hours. driver Shankar Pansare who died posit in Axis Bank. We have re-
Chowk to Bopodi Gaon has been in the German Bakery blast. quested the bank to give interest af-
completed. Within the next few Company’s director Parminder Parminder Kaur (c) and Naveen ter every three months to Yogita,’’
days, the total work will be on this road,’’ said corporator Patil said the PMC would also garden. Kaur and accounts head Naveen Deshmukh said.
Deshmukh handed over the
completed. Patil. undertake plantation of rain Moreover, pedestrian cross- Deshmukh handed over a fixed de- Kaur told Yogita that she should
receipt to Yogita Pansare
“There were constant de- The PMC has started replac- trees along both sides of the ings on the road would be estab- posit receipt (FDR) to Shankar’s provide good education to her chil-
mands from the local residents ing the existing street lights road. lished that would not only en- widow Yogita on Wednesday at her located in Vimannagar. After read- dren. She promised to help her and
for the road dividers. Civic offi- with new ones. After establish- The PMC regional ward of- able pedestrians to cross the residence in Dhankavdi. ing in the newspapers about her children in future too.
cials too were convinced that ing the road dividers, the PMC fice has also set up pedestrian road safely but would minimise Yogita has been staying with her Pansare’s death, the employees had Yogita told Kaur that she has
such structures should be set up will resurface the entire road. crossing in front of the Shivaji the speed of vehicles. mother and children in Dhankav- decided to do something to help started working in a PMC school
di. Deshmukh said the company is Pansare’s family “Our employees
. as a peon.
Estique takes the initiative for poor PMC, Cummins staffers
Financially weak
boys, girls are being
the ropes of the hospitality trade and
are ready to begin a suave career in
the hotel industry .
Estique Hotels started this activity
The students are not
only provided free
The group runs two properties
Park Estique on Ahmednagar Road
and Studio Estique close to the INOX
multiplex in Bund Garden. Not only
clean up river bed
trained in hotel mgmt three years ago as part of the hotel’s training but also are these students provided free train-
Two containers
Corporate Social Responsibility ing but they also receive a monthly
Nilanjana Ghosh Choudhury (CSR). These students have been re- receive a monthly stipend of Rs1,500. full of plastic
ferred through leading city NGOs and stipend of Rs1,500. The “The students study for two simul-
When 20-year-old Kiran Ranzawane rigorously trained in hotel manage-
hotel took this initiative taneous courses. While the basic carry bags and
said that “I am the only educated per- ment courses to be later absorbed in course in hotel management has been
son in my family and can speak Eng- the group’s hotels. three years ago as part developed by us, they also undertake gutkha sachets
lish fluently the spark in his eyes was
hard to miss.
,’’ “It all started in 2006 when we de-
cided to recruit students from cam-
of its corporate social a three year degree course in tourism
from the Indira Gandhi National were lifted
Kiran, the son of a construction puses. However, we could not find suit- responsibility. So far, Open University which gives them the Abhay Khairnar
worker and a housemaid is one among able candidates who would suit the in- 22 students have stability in terms of getting a degree,”
the 13-odd students, who are now part dustry needs. Therefore, we decided said dean of (Institute For Interna- Over 350 staffers of the War-
of the upmarket hospitality industry to begin this course wherein students benefitted from the tional Management Technology je Karvenagar regional ward
in the city. are picked up from marginalised fam- course. (IIMT) Gurgaon Kamal Manaktola, office of the Pune Municipal
Thanks to an initiative by city- ilies and are given complete training who is also the principal consultant Corporation (PMC) and a
based Estique Hotels, now several in nuances of the hotel industry and for this course. section of the employees
Employees of Cummins India cleaning the river bed on
boys and girls from financially weak are later placed with us after comple- dent of Estique Hotels Kavita Amar- So far, 22 students have benefitted from Cummins India Limit-
Friday —Ravindra Joshi.DNA
and marginalised families have learnt tion of the course,’’ said vice-presi- nani. from the course. ed on Friday jointly under-
took a cleaning drive on the regional ward office took found to be a meaningful ac-
river bed for three hours. part in the drive. tivity. “It was a good experi-
NATURE-LOVERS MAY SEND DATA, PHOTOS, VIDEO CLIPS OF SPECIMENS TO THE PORTAL During the drive, they “Since the state has com- ence to clean the river bed.
collected two containers full pleted 50 years of its forma- It has opened our eyes to the
of plastic carry bags, gutkha tion, we thought that we fact that there is so much
NGO takes the lead in biodiversity sachets and other garbage
from the river bed. The drive
was carried out between Ra-
jaram and Mhatre bridges.
Regional ward officer
should do something mean-
ingful. Hence we decided to
clean up the river bed,” said
Dhelwan.
Employees of the Cum-
garbage on the river bed.
We, as citizens should be
more responsible and not
throw plastic bags and oth-
er garbage in any part of the
Bhagyashree Kulthe “Our core team will be located in Sunil Gaikwad, health in- mins India Limited ex- city. It affects the environ-
Biodiversity Pune and we have volunteers across spector Dipak Dhelwan and pressed happiness in taking ment adversely,” said the
Nature lovers can now make scien- India and in other countries. The other senior officials of the part in the drive, which they employees of the company.
tific contributions while enjoying experts, movement is started to provide citi-
naturalists,
PMC octroi department
walks and treks. All they have to zens an easy-to-use framework that
do is record their observations can transform amateur biodiversity
and capture on film the taxonomists observations into scientifically use-
specimens they see and send the data and ecologists ful data,” said Chavan, who works as
to www.spandan-bip.org. can join the senior programme officer at Global
The web-based information sys-
tem is an initiative by Spandan, the
Bip (biodiversity inventory by peo-
ple), a project by the Non-Govern-
network of
experts for
validating
Biodiversity Information Facility,
Copenhagen, Denmark.
“Spandan will be a citizens’ in-
strument to let governments know
all set to be privatised
mental Organisation (NGO) World
Institute for Nature (WIN), which records
that we are worried about the de-
pleting state of the world’s biodiver-
Proposal to be Mahesh Zagade has signed
the proposal to be placed be-
ministration will send a pro-
posal to the standing com-
aims at collecting millions of biodi- Vishwas Chavan giving a presentation on Friday sity and are ready to act. We wish to placed before fore the standing committee mittee on the issue. “The
versity ob- pass on the legacy of sustainable na- on Thursday . NCP has already declared its
GREEN servations the species. They only need to know through this movement, said chair- ture with its diversity to our future standing panel Octroi is the main source support for privatisation of
during the common name of the organism, man of the board of trustees of WIN generations, while it is alive and pul- of revenue for the civic body . octroi while the Congress is
PROJECT 2010, the In- locality where the observation was Vishwas Chavan. He was speaking at sating,” he added. on Thursday However, the department has also in favour of it,” he said.
ternational made and other general information. a meeting of collaborators on Friday. Biodiversity experts, naturalists, been unable to achieve the The standing committee will
Year of Biodiversity The data will be
. The information will be verified by He stressed on the participation of taxonomists and ecologists can join Abhay Khairnar annual target for the past few discuss the issue and take
used for environment activities. experts, who will also do value addi- the general public in monitoring the network of experts for validating years, which in turn has af- appropriate decision on
Citizens can take photos or video tion. The observation records will biodiversity. records. Individuals can also con- The ruling Nationalist Con- fected the financial health of Thursday, he added.
clips of the object of observation then be published by Spandan. All WIN will hold several campaigns tribute to development of public gress Party (NCP) and Con- the PMC. There are around 20% to
(plant, animal or any living thing) can contribute to the observation over the next 10 months. These in- service announcements, presenta- gress have indicated that The target for the last fis- 30% leakages in octroi col-
and send them with data like name records, irrespective of age, class or clude urban diversity inventory, tree tions and electronic media cam- they are in favour of giving cal was Rs900 crore but the lection. The civic adminis-
of the species, location and date of creed. counting and bird observation com- paigns in the local language. nod to the proposed move of civic body was able to collect tration feels that if the octroi
observation. Over the next five years, Spandan, petitions. They will also organise “We are seeking collaborations the Pune Municipal Corpo- only Rs750 crore. collection is done with the
It’s not necessary that the con- the Bip aspires to collect together road shows and ‘Spandan - the Bip with local schools and colleges, in- ration (PMC) to privatise its Standing committee help of private parties, it will
tributor of the observations needs to over a billion scientifically useful walk’ in December 2010 and January stitutions and individuals to take the octroi department. chairman Arvind Shinde get a revenue of more than
know the scientific information of biodiversity observation records 2011. movement further,” said Chavan. Municipal commissioner confirmed that the civic ad- Rs1,000 crore.