Chapter 7 CHAPTER 7

Chapter 7 CHAPTER 7 CHANGE IN LAND USE, DEVELOPMENT OF INFRASTRUCTURE, INDUSTRIES AND INSTITUTES 7.1 Change in Land Use Following the floods in 1961, the old face of the City was greatly changed. The city had suddenly broken its bounds. Therefore, it became absolutely essential to control and channelizes the growth of the City. On the one hand, middle-class residential areas were moving outwards, while the flow of rural migrants was moving into slums which came up on the peripheries of the middle-class localities along railway tracks, river banks, hill slopes and in the interstices of developed areas. There were large settlements in Mangalwar, Bhawani and Nana Peths and also Yerwada. But as the waves of rural poor from draught - stricken Eastern Maharashtra came in, they settled in the area north of Parvati Hill. Shanty settlements also came up at Erandawane and Kothrud where many - workers settled after beginning of industrialization at Hadapsar and Khadki. These enclaves became the starting point for further growth in the old low- income localities in the City and in the incorporated villages and older settlements of brick-kiln and quarry workers and other labours. Usually, land cast aside by building rules - as unsuitable or unhealthy for better class housing - is where the poor settle. The unhealthy conditions - lack of clean drinking water or sewage systems - made these areas highly prone to disease. Most epidemics started in the slums. In the Revised Development Plan (1991 - 2000), the land declared surplus under the ULC (Urban. Land Ceiling Act) was earmarked for slum rehabilitation programme and economically weaker section housing schemes. But nothing much happened till the end of last decade of 20th Century. The first master plan (1952) for greater Poona was a thoughtful document, laying down the norms of planning for the City. Its main points related to zoning and reservation of land 191 for public use; building bye-laws; widening of roads and streamlining of traffic and improvement of water supply as well as slums. Here zoning of land was to be followed, land demarcated for various types of residential patterns (chawals, group-housing, tenements and bungalows); for industries of all kinds (small, medium and heavy); educational institutions, markets, administrative buildings and also for parks and gardens. It was also recommended that land should be kept aside, in the areas which would be urbanized soon, for roads, water supply and drainage schemes. Building Bye-laws were to be strictly implemented and elevations of buildings were to be aesthetic. The plan recommended that land demarcated should be immediately frozen, especially the road sites. The planners also felt that the then existing laws for town planning were inadequate and that help from State Government was needed for successful development. It was necessary to formulate appropriate planning standards so that development benefits could reach the lower-income groups if slums were not to engulf the City. However, all the efforts put into this plan were wasted before it could even be commissioned; it was superseded by a new law, The Bombay Town Planning Act, 1954. The new law thus required the preparation of a fresh development plan for Pune. This took ten years to finally become operative in 1966. 7.2 The Development Plan of 1966 This had two parts : 1. Dealt with the problems of the old city - its traffic conditions, the need for widening of its roads, and the creation of open spaces to serve as green lungs for the congested core. Slum improvement and slum clearance was one on its major concerns. 2. The second part dealt with the problems of controlling development in the areas around and outside the old city. Since this area had more open space, it was felt that controlling growth of slums and planning of roads should be easier here. It also suggested that the authority which should implement this plan should be the Corporation. However, the ground reality was that the 192 funds required for implementing both the above parts of the plan were not available. The Corporation realized the great difficulty in acquiring so much land in the first place. It was therefore, important to prune the Plan to a more realistic level and only implement the priority schemes. Soon, however, the Old Bombay Town Planning Act (1954) was replaced by the Maharashtra Regional Town Planning Act of 1966 (MRPT). This was in a response to the unrestricted industrial growth in the Bombay - Pune Region and the felt need to have a more integrated and coordinated development of the metropolitan region falling within the influence of Bombay. Under the Chairmanship of Dr. D. R. Gadgil, a new plan was formulated which became law as the MRTP Act. Under this new law, the State Government established a special area known as Poona Metropolitan Region (PMR), and setup a planning authority board for another plan. This time the plan was for a much wider area than the previous attempts. At last it was understood that planning had to take place in not only the town itself but the hinterland as well. 7.3 Pune Metropolitan Region : The Regional Plan for Pune was finally ready in 1970 and sanctioned in 1976. The PMR included the Pune Municipal area, Pune, Khadki and Dehuroad Cantonments; the three municipal towns of Talegaon Dabhade, Pimpri- Chinchwad, Alandi and 127 villages - a total area of 1605 Sq. Km. and a projected population of two million six hundred thousand by 1991. However, over thirty years have passed since the first regional plan was sanctioned; there has been very little progress on its recommendations. Till 1992 only 18% of the plan was implemented. The problem was that these plans created programmes in only in physical terms and did not lay down measures for raising funds to implement them. The sums required ran into many millions with no means to raised the money in ten or twenty years. Actually the whole planning and re- 193 •I c « "co -e = = —e o c cs - e ex u. planning exercise has been upside down. The regional plan should have come first, followed by the development plan for Pune, with smaller sector-wise plans and other separate plan for the towns included in the PMR. There after the Government appointed working group under the chairmanship of Dr. K. G. Parnjape, former chief secretary to the Government of Maharashtra, to review the problems of implementation, particularly in the provision of infrastructure. The working group in its report reiterated the need for a Metropolitan Authority for Pune since the scope of planning had vastly increased with the inclusion of 36 fringe villages within the PMC. Micro-level surveys and detailed plans are required for each of these villages if haphazard development is to be avoided. This task was well beyond the then existing infrastructure available within the town planning department and the PMC. The planning process was further plagued by frequent and sudden de-reservation of plots, changing their land use from what it had been originally earmarked for. This tendency was on the rise since the mid 1980s. The urban land values started escalating to dizzying heights and land-sharks and builders manipulated the land market. The builder lobby with its political connections often made a mockery of plans, with land use colours changed over night with a mere signature. Private greed at the cost of public good made open spaces disappears; road widening measures became a farce, as vehicle parking spaces were used up for commercial gains, often with the connivance of politicians and public servants. There seemed a total lack of political will to safeguard the urban environment, as well as apathy to tap any resource, human or economic, to positively affect the city's development. As of 2001, total area under the PMR covers new PMC limits, including the 23 fringe villages added to the PMC limit, Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal limits, Khadki, Dehuroad Cantonments, Talegaon Dabhade Municipal Body and neighbouring urban areas. In this the share of PMC is around 59% and the share of PCMC. Thus industrial and commercial development epicenters in the PMR are Pune City and Pimpri-Chinchwad MIDC. Since the urbanization impacts of 195 industrial and commercial development spread to neighbouring areas as well, it made sense from a planning perspective to have a development plan for a larger area. The PMR is thus, an area within the Pune district that encompasses both the PMC as well as the PCMC. The Puhe district, shaped like a shoe as shown below is divided into 13 talukas. These are Junnar, Ambegaon, Khed, Shirur, Maval, Mulshi, Haveli, Daund, Velhe, Purandar, Baramati, Indapur and Bhor. The Pune Metropolitan Region lies in the Haveli Taluka and is the most developed part of the district. Fig. 7.2 : Map of Pune District •Si , -VJ Junnar / ^Ambegaon fV Khed Maval Shirur Mulshi © v,n Haveli Daund L-. Purandar ;Velha Baramati "--"-?«. ^'Bhor^ ^,., Indapur / Table 7.1 : Area Expansion Pune City and Pune Urban Areas Year Area![Sq . Km) Reason of Expansion Pune City Urban Area 1860 7.36 34.71 Formation of Pune Municipality, Establishment of Pune and Khadki Cantonment. 1940 18.84 81.95 Establishment of Dehuroad Cantonment 1950 125.75 188.86 Pune Municipal Corporation 1970 138.76 266.88 Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Council 1982 146.00 314.11 Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Council Formed 1997 440.00 700.00 Merging of 38 & 18 villages into Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad Corporations respectively. 196 Table 7.2 : Population Growth of Pune City and Pune Urban Area Population (in Lakh) Year Pune City Area Pune Urban Area 1901 1.53 1.64 1911 — 1.72 1921 ~ 1.98 1931 — 2.50 1941 .

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