After civic notice, illegal structure near Puja Khedkar’s family house cleared

Illegal structure near IAS officer's family bungalow in Pune cleared after notice, officer faces misconduct allegations.

An “illegal” structure near trainee IAS officer Puja Khedkar’s family bungalow in Pune has been cleared, days after the civic body issued them a notice to remove it, an official said on Wednesday.

Ms. Khedkar’s family might have got the alleged encroachment removed as the deadline set by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is not yet over, the official said.

PMC officials had on July 13 pasted a notice outside the bungalow in the city’s Baner Road area asking the IAS officer’s family to clear an “unauthorised” structure measuring 60 feet in length, 3 feet in width and with a height of 2 feet along a footpath adjoining the property.

“We had put up the notice at the bungalow asking them (the Khedkar’s family) to remove the encroachment within seven days. The notice said if the family failed to remove the structure within seven days, PMC would clear it and recover the expenses from them,” said a senior civic official.

The Pune civic body has not cleared the structure since the deadline is not yet over, the official said. “Probably the family got it removed by employing private workers,” he said.

Ms. Khedkar is in the eye of a storm for allegedly misusing the disability and Other Backward Class (OBC) quota to secure a position in the IAS besides facing allegations of unwarranted conduct during her posting at the Pune collector’s office.

Meanwhile, her parents Manorama and Dilip Khedkar remain untraceable, days after police registered an FIR against them over a video purportedly showing them threatening some persons with a gun following a land dispute in Mulshi tehsil of Pune district.