PUNE: The Built Operate Transfer (BOT) committee of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), which met after a prolonged delay of nearly a year and a half on Monday, in principle cleared some major projects including the 34 km long high capacity mass transport road, and the Warje to Kharadi river basin road, paving way for preparation of the design and land acquisition and estimation of these projects being talked about for a long time now.

Though initially the PMC had planned to construct the two roads on its own, it has now decided to push for approval through the Public Private Partnership (PPP) scheme, floated by the central government, which will make them eligible for 20 per cent of the grant from the central and a similar amount from the state government, plus a soft loan, removing a huge burden from the shoulders of PMC, Mayor Mohan Singh Rajpal, who chaired the meeting, told reporters.

However, a major hurdle up the way of the projects is that except for the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), none of the remaining political parties at the PMC have shown any enthusiasm for the projects.

Though the Congress, MNS and the BJP-Shiv Sena have said that they have registered their opposition as none of the documents and details of the projects were made available to them, the real reason that some leaders point out is that the projects have already fallen into the laps of the NCP bigwigs at the PMC.