Pune/Mumbai: About 7 million people are estimated to live in Pune where bustling eateries, shopping malls, educational institutes and a large IT township stand testimony to its growing stature as a mega city in Maharashtra.
But, for a city that has prided itself for quality of life, infrastructure and planning has surprisingly been unable to keep up with its growing aspirations. The pace of implementation of mega infrastructure projects such as Metro, airport, ring road has been very slow.
“In my opinion, the development of Pune is not happening in a planned way. The development is happening first and then the infrastructure is coming along whereas it should have been the other way around,” said Kavita Murugkar, urban planner based in Pune.
But the issue with Pune is not unique, town planners add. “The problem, however, is that urbanisation rate is much more compared to other metro cities, like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore because Pune is built around a limited network of roads,” said activist Siddharth Desai.
It comes as no wonder that Ravindra Dhangekar from the Congress and Murlidhar Mohol from the BJP have been talking about infrastructure in their campaign.
“I will constitute a think tank of experts for the city and regularly interact with them on development issues of the city. My office will be open round-the-clock for the service of citizens,” Mohol, who was the Pune mayor earlier, says in his manifesto, sankalp patra.
पुण्याच्या दीर्घकालीन हितासाठी थिंकटॅंक स्थापन करुन नियमित संवाद साधणार…#संकल्प_पत्र #SankalpPatra #Punewithmodi #Murlidharmohol4pune #BJP #भाजपा #BJP4pune pic.twitter.com/CW9By3xrrX
— Murlidhar Mohol (Modi Ka Parivar) (@mohol_murlidhar) May 8, 2024
To give push to the development, Mohol promises to create a 150-km-long Metro network along with steps to increase last mile connectivity through it. He has also given thrust to the proposed international airport in Purandar.
पुरंदर येथील प्रस्तावित आंतरराष्ट्रीय विमानतळासाठी जोरकस पाठपुरावा करणार…#संकल्प_पत्र #SankalpPatra #Punewithmodi #Murlidharmohol4pune #BJP #भाजपा #BJP4pune pic.twitter.com/dwkNXr6vdK
— Murlidhar Mohol (Modi Ka Parivar) (@mohol_murlidhar) May 8, 2024
In his manifesto, the BJP candidate also promised voters that once elected, he would complete the Ring Road project
In fact, on Saturday, Union minister Nitin Gadkari campaigned for Mohol and he also stressed on the development of Pune via infrastructure.
📍पुणे, महाराष्ट्र
पुणे लोकसभा मतदारसंघाचे भाजप-महायुतीचे उमेदवार श्री @mohol_murlidhar जी यांच्या प्रचारार्थ पुणे येथे आयोजित जाहीर सभेला आज संबोधित केले.
रस्ते महामार्ग, मेट्रो तसेच केंद्र सरकारच्या अनेक योजनांच्या माध्यमातून मागील दशकभरात पुण्याचा आर्थिक-सामाजिक विकास शक्य… pic.twitter.com/OTsCNhUex9
— Nitin Gadkari (मोदी का परिवार) (@nitin_gadkari) May 11, 2024
In a separate manifesto for Pune, Congress’s Ravindra Dhangekar has focused on public transport water among other issues. He has promised to bolster public transport by expanding the Metro network and including more e-buses in the existing fleet of the city’s public transport bus service provider.
ThePrint tried to reach out to both the BJP and the Congress candidates on how they aim to address these issues. The copy will be updated once the response comes in.
Comprising Vadgaon Sheri, Shivajinagar, Kothrud, Parvati, Pune Cantonment, and Kasba Peth assembly segments, Pune parliamentary constituency will vote 13 May. BJP has 5 MLAs and NCP has 1 MLA from this Lok Sabha constituency.
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Pune’s growth story
Pune grew massively in the post-Independence period, but the advent of Information Technology spurted its growth exponentially. According to documents maintained by the University of Pune, the Pune urban area grew 130 times from 5 sq km in 1817 to 669.30 sq km in 1997.
As the city grew, so did its population. Pune’s population was 5 million, according to the 2011 Census, while the current estimate is at 7 million. This is up from 2.5 million in 1991.
“In urban planning, there is a concept of carrying capacity of a particular area. Looking at the road width, the planning is done so that the water, drainage, electricity and all will be sufficient,” said Desai.
“However, in Pune, where there were smaller buildings or bungalows on a road, they have been developed into towers, now there is congestion and infrastructure problems related to that.”
Pune has expanded by merging neighbouring villages. In the late 60s, planners identified the need for having a Pune Metropolitan Region (PMR) with organised development outside the demarcated city areas of Pune and the adjacent Pimpri Chinchwad.
And so PMR was formed which includes regions such as Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad, the cantonments of Pune, Khadki and Dehu Road, and about a hundred other census towns and villages on the fringes.
Even as the city expanded, there wasn’t a proper planning authority. When the BJP- Shiv Sena government came into power in 1995, it announced a plan to constitute a Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) to administer the Pune urban agglomeration, on the lines of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), in 1997, during the Shiv Sena-BJP rule. The plan never took off until 2015, again during the time of the BJP-Sena rule.
In terms of coordination, it depends on authorities and officer to officer, said a senior official from Pune administration in the knowhow of these projects. “All infra projects are now being monitored closely from all corners. So the pace is picking up.”
For the current financial year, the Pune Municipal Corporation presented a budget of Rs 11,000 crore, an increase of Rs 2,000 crore from last year. Apart from road widening and new flyovers, the budget proposed to improve upon the road connectivity by constructing the missing links and flyover around to decongest the traffic.
In the last decade, one of the key infrastructural projects was the Pune Metro. The Pune Metro Rail Project comprises two corridors: the Pune line 1 (north-south corridor-purple line) and Pune line 2 (east-west corridor-aqua line), totalling a length of 33.2 km with 30 stations. Currently, 29.86 km is operational for the public while construction is actively underway on the remaining 3.34 km.
On 6 March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually inaugurated around six-km-long stretch between Ruby Hall Clinic and Ramwadi stations on line 1.
“If you see, the IT park was developed first and now the road connectivity, Metros are coming up. Even now if we look, there is no proper connectivity of Metro to the existing airport. This should have been the first thing that should happen; the way it happens in other world cities. But here, public transport comes in last,” Murugkar rued.
Dhangekar has promised voters, if elected, he would make sure that the airport connectivity is completed.
Another showpiece, the Pune international airport, has been in the pipeline for 20 years, and it is far from taking off as there is stringent opposition to land acquisition in Purandar. Votaries of Purandar Airport suspect that once Navi Mumbai International Airport becomes operational next year, plans for the former could slow down further. This Navi Mumbai airport would be at least 40 km closer than the Mumbai International Airport for travellers from Pune.
In the case of the road to decongest the traffic in Pune, the Outer Ring Road is divided into two parts – from Urse on Yashwantrao Chavan Expressway to Shivare on Pune-Satara national highway, which will be known as Eastern Ring Road, while from Shivare back to Urse will be known as Western Ring Road.
While a total of 136 km was sanctioned in 2015, the work order is expected to be given this year. Authorities claim that the work will be completed in 2 years.
“All these big projects need land. Land acquisition is a major challenge. And it definitely takes some time. People go to court, availability of the land…all are challenges but we can work on those challenges,” the senior official quoted above said. He added that in the last 5 odd years, Pune has seen a massive infra growth.
Proposed early this year, an Inner Ring Road will be developed by the PMRDA. The project will share a common 38.5 km alignment with the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation’s (MSRDC) Outer Ring Road
“If you compare Pune and Mumbai, Pune definitely is getting a step brotherly treatment when it comes to infrastructure or priority sectors. It takes twice the amount of time to complete the work in Pune. That is natural because state capitals get more priority but then how does a city like Pune handle the situation?” Desai asserted. “It is still one of the largest cities in the country. So, how do you address this dichotomy?”
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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