PUNE: The unplanned construction work of footpath in Koregaon Park (KP) near ABC Farms and their repeated digging is inconveniencing citizens for the past one month.

The pedestrians are finding it very difficult to cross the stretch of around a kilometre from North Main Road till east main road, KP extension.

Kalpana Chitnis, owner of Basho’s restaurant, said, “This important stretch has numerous famous restaurants and pubs from where thousands of people walk through this footpath. Moreover, the road is also quite narrow and people have no other choice but to walk on the road. Though from past one month, the road work has again started, we have experienced this reconstruction of the footpath several times in a year and seems like a never ending process.”

“After the digging work is done for a single day, the road is left in such a horrible condition that the pedestrians find it very difficult to cross it,” she further added.

Suresh Magdani, the owner of a shop on the footpath, said, “The workers don’t work regularly, the work is done on alternate days and also mainly during the day. It creates a chaos when the footpath work continues during the peak hours as the pedestrians don’t get space to walk and they are forced to walk on the road, which also makes the traffic slow. Many times, we have seen that pedestrians have fallen on the footpath and have been hurt very badly.”

Vishal Haribhakta, Executive Engineer of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), road department said, “The work of reinstating the optical fibre cables under the road has started recently as the permit was granted to Reliance on April 31. We will try to complete the work as soon as possible and ensure the footpath is constructed well for the residents.”