NAVI MUMBAI: The Range Forest Officer of Panvel has lodged a forest FIR against a Panvel city municipal corporation contractor for illegally constructing a road on forest land in Khutari village. The PCMC has awarded a concrete road contract worth Rs 30 lakh for a stretch less than half a kilometre to connect the back side of the village to old Mumbai-Pune highway.
“The road concretization work started at the tail end of the village connecting the village to the old Mumbai-Pune highway and the road length is not even half a kilometer, but was stopped by the forest department,” said Rajesh Mhatre, a Khutari villager.
“The pre-existing road was a concrete one and the road is being refurbished through a contractor at a cost of about Rs 30 lakh,” said Sanjay Katekar, executive engineer, PCMC.
“About 70 metre long and 3-metre-wide concrete road falls on forest land survey number 42/A of Rohinjan village. The contractor had done the work during the night hours on Tuesday without obtaining prior permission. Hence the work has been stopped and an FIR has been filed against two unknown persons of the contracting firm under section 26. ” said Dnyaneshwar Sonawane, range forest officer-Panvel.
