The Panvel Range Forest Officer has issued a notice to the Panvel City Municipal Corporation (PCMC) for constructing a road in the forest area of Khutari village in Taloja. The corporation claimed that it had no knowledge that the road was on forest land.
“While doing routine rounds of the village, our officers found that the corporation was putting up cement and making road on the land that belongs to the forest department without our permission. Hence, we have issued a notice to them and sought a response. If they fail to give a satisfactory response, we will consider going to the court. Currently, we have filed a case in our range office,” Dhaneshwar Sonawane, Panvel Range Forest Officer, said.
Vishwas Mhatre, a local resident from Khutari, said, “The road that was present before was kutcha road and now the corporation is concretising it when the forest department took objection. The existing road was around 30 to 40 years old.”
Subhash Rathod, Panvel Round Forest Officer, said, “Around 50% of the Khutari village comes under the forest department and hence the corporation has no right to publish a tender of the area and get a work order done to make a road in this place. Ideally, it should have first taken our permission. In the notice, we have asked the corporation officers to present the documents attached to this work on Friday at our office.”
Meanwhile, Sanjay Jagtap, City Engineer from PCMC, said, “We stopped the road work when we learnt about the objection from the forest department. We were not constructing any new road but were resurfacing the old road that existed from the time of Gram Panchayat. The resurfacing work was done after the locals complained to us about the bad road there. Being a corporation, it is our duty to provide basic facilities. Before this, we were never informed that this particular place came under the forest department. But, we took cognisance of the objection and have done the needful.”