Now Reading: Kakodkar panel to review Pune-Nashik rail route’s impact on GMRT
-
01
Kakodkar panel to review Pune-Nashik rail route’s impact on GMRT
The Maharashtra government has set up a four-member committee, chaired by former Atomic Energy Commission chairman Dr Anil Kakodkar, to examine how the proposed Pune-Nashik Semi-High-Speed Railway would affect the Giant Metrewave…
The Maharashtra government has set up a four-member committee, chaired by former Atomic Energy Commission chairman Dr Anil Kakodkar, to examine how the proposed Pune-Nashik Semi-High-Speed Railway would affect the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope at Khodad in Pune district. A government resolution issued by the state Transport Department on Wednesday tasks the panel with studying the electromagnetic, operational and technical effects of both the original alignment and the revised route finalised by the Ministry of Railways, after the Department of Atomic Energy, scientific institutions and NCRA-TIFR warned the line could interfere with the telescope's sensitive observations. The alignment had already been shifted once, via Ahilyanagar and Shirdi. Alongside Kakodkar, the panel includes Railway Board Member Vivek Gupta and the divisional commissioners of Pune and Nashik, and will weigh options such as tunnelling and elevated corridors against travel time, cost and land acquisition before reporting to the state government within 60 days.
Indian Opinion Analysis
The dispute sits between two state priorities: a faster rail link between Pune and Nashik, and the radio-silence conditions that let GMRT detect faint cosmic signals, sensitivities that already forced one earlier reroute through Ahilyanagar and Shirdi. The government resolution now asks Kakodkar's committee to test whether engineering fixes such as tunnelling or elevated corridors can protect the telescope without abandoning the more direct route, while also pricing in land acquisition and connectivity gains for the region. Because the panel draws on the Railway Board and both divisional commissioners rather than campaigners on either side, its findings will carry weight once it reports to the state government inside the resolution's 60-day window.
Source: www.freepressjournal.in
This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
