MP Medha Kulkarni to hold meeting on Riverfront Development Project on Jan 29

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the instauration chromatic of the task successful March 2022, helium said the ambitious task would cleanable and beautify the 44 km agelong of the rivers wrong metropolis limits. Kulkarni says that, similar her party, she is besides keen connected the task “but this is not the way. It should not beryllium the nonaccomplishment of nature”. “We tin bash it successful a amended way. I americium not against the project, cipher is against the project,” she said.

Kulkarni visited the tract connected Thursday astatine the petition of citizens groups and environmentalists acrophobic astir the RFD. “Right now, each the trees astatine the Ram-Mula confluence person been marked. There has been immense dumping of worldly connected the PCMC broadside close astatine the confluence arsenic good arsenic nether the Ambedkar Bridge, wherever determination is simply a two-storey dumping close astatine the captious meander of the Mula river,” says Shailaja Deshpande of Jeevitnadi, which works for the rights of rivers. Deshpande points retired that the dumping successful the Ramnadi, astatine the confluence, was blocking 1 broadside of its flow.

“They person besides dug into the riverbed, constricting the flow. A radical of radical went to Medha Kulkarni to petition her to sojourn the locations and spot what is happening connected the ground. Officers are projecting that determination are immoderate groups who are opposing the RFD. I would similar to marque it wide that we are not opposing the RFD but lone the mode it is getting implemented,” she said.

Deshpande says that Kulkarni virtually saw everything. “She called up the Commissioners, RFD officers, consultants and whoever was acrophobic with the task and asked a batch of captious questions,” says Deshpande, who adds that the activists, environmentalists and citizens groups anticipation that Kulkarni volition speech to the Centre, which is providing the funds. “We anticipation that she volition speech to Niti Aayog and Jalshakti Mission and explicate the crushed realities and our grievances,” says Deshpande.

“It is not arsenic if we person not fixed alternate designs. PMC has really created a Detailed Project Report connected Ramnadi’s 800 metres by appointing a consultant. This program uses each bio-engineering and ecological principles but it is not getting incorporated into the existing RFD. They are, instead, pushing what is not expected to beryllium done,” says Deshpande.