India, Sept. 21 -- The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) may begin construction of the high-capacity mass transit route (HCMTR) in phases rather than wait for the entire land acquisition process to be completed, with the P L Deshpande Garden-Laxminarayan Chowk-Bibwewadi Chowk-Gangadham-Lulla Nagar Chowk stretch likely to be taken up first after the contract is awarded possibly this year itself; officials said.

The civic body is working on an execution strategy under which construction will begin on stretches where land is already available along existing road alignments or can be accessed through working permissions; while the acquisition of private land and transfer of land held by other agencies continues simultaneously. The approach is...