Lead

Kharghar Sky Walk a Rs.36 Cr Monumental Waste of Public Money

Ravi  Srivastava for BeyondHeadlines

One of the main agenda of Aam Aadmi Party is to have the  implementation of “Nagar Raj Bill “approved by State Governments including Maharashtra is  gathering dust in  the Corridors of power for implementation in letter & spirit, the Swaraj theme of  AAP demands  the  empowerment of “Mohalla sabhas” in urban wards/clusters and “Gram Sabhas” in rural areas/Villages. Provision of Roads, Bridges, culvert, subway/Under pass, community centre, Dispensary, School, Police station, utilities  should be finalised and approved by the  Local collectives like Mohalla Sabha/Gram Sabha and not by a “Babu” or a ‘Neta” sitting in cosy Air conditioned chambers of Mantralaya, it is the  local populace who know the  best, what is good and convenient for them, such practice do exist in many countries and called “Participative Governance”, but we are an exception.

Photo Courtesy: mid-day.comThe case in point here is a “Skywalk” constructed for Rs. 36 crore of Taxpayers hard earned money in over 3 years by CIDCO (who make cities). This skywalk has a length of approx 1.7KM and  travels from Kharghar Railway station ends at Utsav Chowk  crossing Hiranandani chowk and part of Sion- Panvel Highway  with a few exits and an uprising  escalator at the Kharghar  Railway station. This Skywalk  was inaugurated with much fanfare by Sh Sharad Pawar Agri. Minister after a wait of approx. 5 months post  completion, since a VIP is a must for cutting Ribbons to garner votes in forthcoming Elections. After 7 months of its opening the Skywalk proved to be a dud investment without serving any purpose or utility to public at large and only benefited the contractor, corrupt Politicians and Bureaucrats.

Skywalk has proved to be a monumental waste of money, it is barely used by 500-700 people in whole day due to its length and height, even escalator provided to lure people to use it is of no avail, The sky walk is lit whole Night and incurs an expenditure of more than Rs. 60K per month in Electricity Bills  alone. Elderly/Women feel insecure to move on it during night since there is no security deployed on the skywalk. Instead of such a Phantom skywalk a couple of cross over Bridges with escalators would have sufficed the need of Commuters who cross the Highway and occasionally hit by speeding vehicles.

Who is answerable for this criminal waste of Public Money?   We raise a serious question, the same may be the fate of another ambitious project of CIDCO “Navi Mumbai Metro Rail” which  should not meet the same fate for want of commuters.

Loading...

Most Popular

To Top

Enable BeyondHeadlines to raise the voice of marginalized

 

Donate now to support more ground reports and real journalism.

Donate Now

Subscribe to email alerts from BeyondHeadlines to recieve regular updates

[jetpack_subscription_form]