Pune residents complain of poor roads and endless traffic

Pune Residents voiced their concern on Sunday over the chaotic traffic in the city in the absence of infrastructural development not carried out by successive representatives of the government.

The roads are rather narrow and with the rise in living standards, a large number of people own private vehicles, thereby, resulting in increased congestion of the narrow roads.

Social worker, Vivek Velarkar, pressed for an improved public transport system like the metro and improved bus services that would make people rely more on public transport than on their own private vehicles.

Velarkar called for strong action by Pune lawmakers for making public transport more reliable.

"For improved public transport, an investment of 10 billion rupees is needed so that revamping can be done in the city. We have an estimate that Pune gives around 500 billion rupees to the central government every year in the form of taxes, so if we get back 10 billion out of it, our problem can be resolved. For this the lawmakers and legislators should take proper action," he said.

Residents claim that the area has become accident prone after the construction of the flyover as proper direction boards and lights have not been put up especially for the night.

People here are calling for desperate measures to be taken by the authorities.

"Action must be taken as there is so much of traffic jams. The government is building this flyover to deal with the traffic, but since this is a small road, there is so much traffic due to this construction," said an auto driver, Aarif Tabali.

It has been like this for years now despite promises of solving the traffic problem by successive governments here. The traffic is massive especially at the Ring Road where construction of a flyover is also in full swing, making matters worse.