The reworked development plan is unlikely to be new in its entirety and will, in fact, be the same one with cosmetic changes and a few corrections pointed out by leading NGOs, civic officials themselves said on Tuesday.
The reworked development plan is unlikely to be new in its entirety and will, in fact, be the same one with cosmetic changes and a few corrections pointed out by leading NGOs, civic officials themselves said on Tuesday.
The state government's decision of scrapping the draft DP comes after vociferous demands from all quarters of the society as well as from political parties, including the Shiv Sena and RPI (A).
Why is a completely new DP "impossible"?
Even as chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has asked the BMC to prepare a fresh draft for the next 20 years, officials claimed four months for bringing out a new plan is too less a time to correct what has been prepared over five years.
Civic officials from the development and planning department say the draft can be improved upon and that complete scrapping is out of the question. "The term 'DP scrapped' to make a way for a new one may have been used by the CM due to mounting pressure from all corners. It will perhaps only remain as a technical term, as preparation of a new draft will take another four to five years," said a senior BMC official.
So what can the govt do?
"There's no chance that officers will go to spots again and undertake physical inspections of all places. Changes will be done mostly on table. The only one thing the state can do is to ask the BMC to be careful while carrying out the changes this time. Probably all the mistakes pointed out by noted personalities and big NGOs will be taken into account. Also, the flaws mentioned by the media will be corrected. This will pacify the agitated activists and then the government can peacefully pass the draft DP," said another official.
Draft ignores the middle class?
A retired BMC official expressed his doubts about the changes proposed in the Development Control Regulations, which, in the draft DP, are against the middle class. One must keep a close eye on whether the changes are implemented or not, the official said.
Sunil Sharma of the Maharashtra Societies Welfare Association, which staged a dharna at Azad Maidan on Monday, said the draft DP is against middle-class areas. "It is driven by big developers and they are interested in exploiting the potential of cluster development and No Development Zones. There is no voice of middle class and lower middle class in the draft DP," he alleged.
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