3 minutes of readingPuneJanuary 31, 2026 05:36 pm IST
A week after the Pune Grand Tour cycling event concluded on January 23, with cyclists praising the city’s smooth roads, residents are now demanding that the same treatment be done by leveling the uneven drainage chambers that continue to cause accidents, traffic disruptions and damage to vehicles on roads just meters away from the pristine cycle route.
Responding to complaints, Pune The Municipal Corporation (PMC) has set a deadline of March-end to level around 10,000 stormwater chambers across the city using a new Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) that proved successful during the cycling event.
Chaitali Netake, a resident of Karve Nagar, said the disparity is evident. “The smoothness of the road along the Grand Tour route is really commendable and shows that PMC has the ability to build high-quality roads. The demand now is to create parity between the parallel roads and the cycle route and eliminate potholes and irregular chambers.”
Highlighting the safety risks, Anurag Tembhurnikar, a resident of Kalewadi, said, “Uneven cambers are risky, two-wheelers often lose balance due to potholes or sudden falls, and these are a major cause of accidents, even fatal ones. These unevenness also cause traffic disruption as many of them try to avoid them.”
Beyond safety concerns, residents say sunken patches take a physical and financial toll. “Sudden jolts when driving over these uneven chambers cause back pain and even damage the vehicle’s suspension, tires and chassis, especially in vehicles with low ground clearance,” says Netake.
Neighbors have also complained about the quality of the repair work. Akshay Patil, a resident of Narayan Peth, said, “Several chambers become uneven again within a few days of repair because the cement or concrete used is usually of poor quality or the repair is not aligned with the road surface.”
PMC’s new approach
Ashit Jadhav, superintendent engineer, PMC Highways Department, said He indian express“During the Pune Grand Tour, camera leveling work was carried out on a carriageway contract. And after the event, the PMC is actively repairing uneven, dangerous and protruding cameras across the city by implementing a new SOP to align them with the road surface.”
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The new SOP includes an elaborate process that involves precisely cutting the area around each chamber, replacing covers or frames as necessary, and leveling them with high-quality cement that hardens in four to five hours. Previous repair works proved ineffective due to lack of clear guidelines for contractors.
“Currently the priority is to level the stormwater chambers, and around 10,000 of them will be brought to the road level. We have set the deadline for end of March,” Jadhav added.
PMC spends Rs 7-8 million annually on trail and camera repairs, and around 30 per cent, approximately Rs 2-2.5 million, goes specifically towards leveling uneven cameras.
The camera leveling project began in November last year as part of preparations for the Pune Grand Tour, employing advanced technology to raise more than 15,000 cameras along the cycle route to road level. The success of that initiative has now become the benchmark that residents expect for all roads in the city.