Chakan’s traffic congestion has continued despite a district administration plan to stagger industrial shift timings, with smaller companies reportedly beginning to comply while larger firms have yet to fully implement the arrangement.
The plan was ordered by Pune district collector Jitendra Dudi on September 2 after discussions by a coordination committee formed to address the industrial area’s traffic and infrastructure problems. The arrangement separates the start and end times of all three shifts across different phases of the Chakan industrial area by 30 minutes.
The 90-day schedule is being implemented on a trial basis. Its stated purpose is to prevent large numbers of workers from entering and leaving factories at the same time, thereby reducing pressure on roads around the industrial zone.
According to the report, the response has been uneven. Smaller companies within the Chakan industrial area have started implementing the revised timings, but larger companies are reportedly delaying or avoiding the change. This has limited the immediate effect of the order on congestion.
Implementation is also complicated by the geography of the industrial cluster. The Chakan industrial area covers about 7,250 acres and includes Phases 1 to 5. The Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation is planning to develop a sixth phase. At the same time, industrial activity has expanded outside the formally designated industrial area across an area that is comparable to, or larger than, the notified estate.
That expansion means the district administration’s timing order does not automatically cover every company contributing to traffic in the Chakan region. The report notes that small industries that had warned of relocation because of poor infrastructure and congestion were primarily located outside the industrial area. This has brought attention to the more serious infrastructure and mobility problems faced by businesses beyond the MIDC estate.
The coordination committee, chaired by the district collector, is responsible for examining the problems affecting industries and transport in the Chakan area. Its discussions led to the trial shift-timing arrangement, but the current implementation gap between smaller and larger firms has made coordination a central challenge.
The congestion issue is therefore continuing alongside the planned expansion of the industrial cluster. With the sixth MIDC phase under consideration and substantial industrial development already occurring outside the estate, managing worker movement will require the timing experiment to cover the wider employment area rather than only selected phases. The 90-day trial remains the next formal milestone for assessing whether staggered shifts can reduce congestion.
