New location for Chapekar memorial The Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation has started demolition of the Chapekar memorial tower at Chapekar Chowk in Chinchwadgaon. The civic body had,a couple of months ago,shifted the Chapekar statue to a new place. Assistant municipal commissioner Dilip Gawde said the Chapekar memorial would now be set up at the civic-run Chapekar school in Chinchwadgaon. "Statues of the three brothers will be installed there." Earlier,the memorial housed only the statue of Damodar Chapekar. "We are even planning to install the statue of one of their friends who was also involved in the killing of British officer Rand. 14,000 encroachments in town,drive soon Over 14,000 encroachments have been detected on land reserved for development purposes under the jurisdiction of the four divisional offices of Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation. It has also been found that around 5,000 people had made these encroachments. The administration has now decided to send the encroachers packing as early as possible. Guardian minister Ajit Pawar has also directed the civic body to get rid of encroachers so that the land could be freed for development purposes. Municipal commissioner Asheesh Sharma said they would step up their drive against encroachment. Work on international convention centre After autocluster and science centre,the industrial town will soon get an international convention centre. The Pimpri-Chinchwad Newtownship Development Authority will set up the facility,announced at least two years ago,in a 200-acre Moshi plot. Municipal commissioner Asheesh Sharma said the work would begin in six months. He said a presentation would be made before the state government on November 17. The Centre and the state governments will contribute Rs 100 crore each for the project,which Sharma claimed would be the biggest convention centre in Asia. The centre will house an exhibition centre,meeting rooms,banquet halls,hotels,restuarants,restaurants,amphitheatre,library and recreational rooms. One-man army for greenery Prabhakar Deshpande,the 81-year-old labour leader,gave some nervous moments to PCMC officials earlier this week when he walked from Pimpri Chowk to PCMC headquarters and cleaned the ground floor with a broom in hand. Deshpande was protesting against the PCMC's apathy towards conserving greenery in the Pimple Nilakh area. Some civic activists had also joined Deshpande in sweeping the PCMC floors. Officials' promise to act soon finally calmed him down. All in name of immunisation Two conmen recently took residents of Pimple Gurav for a ride. They went around the suburb and told citizens that they were collecting money for an immunisation programme for malaria,chikungunya and typhoid. Some had given them money believing that they were health officials. On Sunday morning,when a number of citizens gathered at the venue,there was no sign of the duo who promised immunisation. Last heard,the Sangvi police have made no headway in their probe.
