Pune News Blog
A blog about life in Pune and various news in Pune city

Early on Sunday morning, 4 shopes (90-year) were burned in a major fire on Moledina street at Khadki Bazar. There were no injured.

During the British rule, Cheap Jack General Stores was started and well-known for selling police and military uniforms, caps, medals, nameplates and badges. The other stores burned were Ahura Garage, Ganesh cycle Mart and Ganesh Laundary.

Around 1 am, the fire started and fire workers fought for 3-hours. Four water tankers and 6 fire tenders were pushed into service. As the exact reason of the fire had not been find out and fire brigade officials allege it was the reason of a short circuit.

Gajanan Patrudkar, fire brigade officer said –

A resident of the area, Ankush Kasavkar, saw smoke coming out of one of the shops and immediately called the owner and informed the fire brigade.

Patrudkar added –

We reached the spot, but access was not easy due to the narrow lanes in the area. It took three hours to douse the fire completely. By that time, the shops were totally destroyed.

On Friday, the annual dry fruit festival starts again in city. The Raisin, Jaggery and Cashew festival 2008 began in the Balgandhar Rangamandir campus.

The 5-day festival provides most diversity of dry fruits like raisins and cashew nuts to customers under one place. The event is open between 9 am - 8 pm from all till Tuesday. About 50 traders from various parts of the state and especially from Konkan, have arranged their stall here. The festival had also drawn participation from many self-help groups.

The Maharashtra State Agriculture Marketing Board organized the festival because of a plan to eliminate middle men. In Aajra, a trader Arun Deshmukh of Sahyadri Agro Products told TOI –

We get a chance to interact directly with the buyers. This is very helpful for us and the public.

The festival helps them vend the products at a lesser cost, he pointed. Deshmukh said that customers can purchase the machines as well as products in 20% smaller price.

In Ratnagiri, a trader Jayashree Athavale of Durga Agro Industries pointed that this festival also supports make consciousness regarding the products range obtainable with the traders. She said-

We have packed the cashews in a special air-tight manner. This ensures that the dry fruit lasts as long as six months without rotting or getting infested.

Other product choices like the organic jaggery had been a main attraction.

On Thursday night, 5 people killed and 7 others were injured that time the jeep they were travilling in crashed head on with a container near Patas ghat on the Pune to Solapur highway.

The Yevat police were identified the dead as jeep driver Shrimant Ghokane (42) of Thergaon, Santosh Gurade (25), Govind Jadhav(18), and Rajendra Jadhav (22), all from Latur.

The injured include Baliram Shinde, Haridas Shinde, Vinod Mane, Jairam Mane, Shivaji Gaikwad, Uttam Birajdar, Vishnu Pawar and Shivaji Gaikwad . They are reported to be in a critical condition.

Rajendra Mohite, assistant police inspector said that the jeep driver was going from Pune-Latur on Friday and missing control over the jeep. He was crashed head at about 11.45 pm on with the container. The police have lodged a complaint against Ghokane, jeep driver for rash and careless driving under the IPC.

Ornaments and cash worth Rs 1.3 lakh in 3 separate incidents were stolen form different areas of the city. On Tuesday, Deccan Gymkhana police have lodged a complaint against 2 unidentified peoples in the first incident traveling on a motorcycle for snatching the mangalsutra for worth Rs 30,000 of Veena Hasurkar. She is a J M Road resident.

On Tuesday, two persons on a motorcycle were snatched the mangalsutra in the 2nd incident worth Rs 45,000 for Jyothi Kshirsagar. She is a resident of Sadashiv peth. The Vishrambaugh police have lodged a complaint against the unidentified persons

On Wednesday, the 2 motorcyclists scooted with the bag of Gaus Shaikh of NIBM road. The bag contained Rs 55,000 cash. The Wanowrie police have lodged a complaint.

Early on Wednesday morning, a huge fire demolished electricity pipes, raw materials, machines, furniture and other equipment in Namoh Plast in the Swami Vivekananda Industrial Area at Hadapsar. In the city, this is the 2nd major fire incident in as several days. A huge fire demolished on Tuesday 100 of flammable samples stored in the Regional Forensic Science Laboratory at Ganeshkind.

Shivaji Chavan, station duty officer of the Hadapsar fire brigade said that firemen dangled into action around 3.45 am after an official of the plastic firm guilty them regarding the incident.

One fire tender of the Pune Cantonment Board, 3 water tankers and 3 fire tenders of the Pune Municipal Corporation were used to drench the fire. The fire demolished PVC pipes, sockets, raw materials and junction boxes, Chavan said.

On Tuesday, branch manger Vishwanath Dattatraya Nadkarni of the ICICI Bank lodged a complaint against on unidentified person for robbed Rs 10 lakh from the bank on Ghole Road

Inspector Sampatrao Patil for crime branch of the Shivajinagar police station said that Nadkarni’s lodged complaint told that Rs 59 lakh has been distributed the before day to 2 cash counters and Rs 10 lakh was found missing between 1.15 pm to 1.30 pm.

Patil said that the peon was counted the cash in the counters number 1-2 and after he handed over the cash to the bank cashiers for the day’s transactions. The bank’s van came to collect the cash that time Rs 10 lakh had gone missing.

Investigations revealed that the switch off circuit cameras installed in the bank were close when the incident, Patil said. He added that the police have called the bank officials to record their statements.

On Wednesday, in Shivajinagar, 90 eye donors from Rotary club members donated eyes to Venu Madhav eye bank. Kiran Walimbe is a president of Rotary club. He said that every year as Pune wants 700 eyes. Surely, this move will help those people have lost their eyes because of accidents, blindness by birth and diabetes.

On Tuesday, the PMC (Pune Municipal Corporation) gets an approve of Rs 523 crore from the state government for JNNURM ( Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission) projects comprising nullahs bio-remediation and ERP software execute in the PMC.

In Nagpur, the decision was taken under chief minister Ashok Chavan and attended in a high-level meeting by civic commissioners of all cities executing the JNNURM projects. In Nagpur, civic chief Pravinsinh Pardeshi speaking to TOI said 3 vital projects of the PMC were discussed and instant allow granted. Pardeshi said-

One of our important projects is restoration and bio-remediation of all the nullahs in the city. We have seen that the city roads tend to get submerged during phases of heavy rainfall. One of the reasons for this is that the natural drainage pattern of the city has been disturbed. Corrective measures need to be taken and we have submitted a project in this regard.

A study had been conducted and suitable measures possible taken to maintain the discharge volume from nullahs, he said. Many encroachments have come up on nullahs and have almost 110 road crossing on them. Thus the plan is to culvert the obstacles as also to channelise and barrier the nullahs.

Received another project and proceed is up gradation of the PMC’s software application system by executing the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software.

Pardeshi said -

The civic body has made efforts in the past, but these were all independent and specific to different departments. We now plan to integrate the entire system by bringing it on a common platform through the ERP software.

He pointed out that Rs 23 crore of the project cost and it is one of the obligatory reforms that civic bodies must comply with for sustained JNNRUM funding.

Also, we have received a sanction of Rs 54 lakh to set up a separate project management unit to take care of the JNNURM projects. It will have a separate finance manager, urban planner, water and sanitation engineer etc. This unit will be temporary and will function for a limited period, which is till the JNNURM projects are being implemented.

From the CM, he had also required time for a separate meeting to discuss Pune projects such as the metro rail and the special reason vehicle, he added.

On Tuesday, two peoples continued harsh injuries after the bike accident. They were travelling and were hit by a PMPML bus on the BRT way on the Pune to Satara road. A very angry crowd gathered and threw stones in the windscreen of the bus.

Pankaj and Gaurav Pramod Raut of Walvekarnagar were hurried to hospital for treatment. The Sahakarnagar police have registered complaint for Satyanand Narayan Rokde (29), bus driver for rash driving and neglectful. He is a resident of Padmawati.

The Sahakarnagar police said that the mishap took place near Walvekar lawns chowk on the Katraj to Nigdi way around 3.30 pm. The bike was in the BRTS way.

Early on Monday morning, the Pune crime branch, the anti-narcotics cell arrested 2 men from the Pune Cantonment and recovered brown sugar (1.20 kg) worth Rs 10.20 lakh from them.

Mamma Yasin Khan (39) from Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh and Shahid Khalil Ahmed Khan (34) of Laxminagar at Yerawada were identified by the suspects. Inspector G V Nikam and sub-inspector Suresh Jadhav led police team acting on inform. They laid a find and arrested two men.

Nikam said -

Shahid Khan is a notorious drugs peddler. He was earlier arrested in 1999 by the city police. Brown sugar worth Rs 2.19 lakh was seized from him at that time. This time, during interrogation, it was revealed that Mamma Khan had brought the brown sugar from Madhya Pradesh. He was getting ready to sell it in the city with the help of Shahid Khan.

The investigating squad includes Pradip Shinde, Sushil Kakde, police constables Eknath Khule, Anand Borawke and Nikam Jadhav.