The director of the ARAI, Shrikant Marathe, said on Tuesday the institute proposes to build laboratories on the land to be deleted from the hill-top zone and converted to public-semi-public zone.
The director of the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), Shrikant Marathe, said on Tuesday the institute proposes to build laboratories on the land to be deleted from the hill-top zone and converted to public-semi-public zone. “The construction will not lead to a concrete jungle on the hill,” he assured.
Marathe was speaking to reporters on Tuesday to dispel fears that ARAI’s proposed expansion would lead to concretisation of Vetal Tekdi and loss of its green cover. Marathe said the state government allotted the entire survey number 102, measuring 260 acres in Kothrud, to the ARAI on 90 years’ lease in 1970.
Though the entire land was allotted to the ARAI, its activities are spread over 25 acres, of which its laboratories and office buildings cover 3.5 acres. The remaining land, except for internal roads, has been developed for tree cover, he said.
Under the proposed expansion plan, the ARAI would set up advanced laboratories to develop less polluting Euro-5 and Euro-6 technologies for greener and safer vehicles. These facilities are required to be used along with the existing facilities.
“It is a logical extension, considering the future needs of the automobile sector and could not be set up elsewhere,” he said.
The ARAI director said the laboratories would be set up under the National Automotive Testing Research and Development Infrastructure Project (Natrip), an ambitious initiative of the Union government’s ‘Automotive Mission Plan 2006 to 2016’.
This plan has the vision of raising the auto sector’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) to 10% and creation of over 25 million jobs.
The Union ministry of heavy industries has sanctioned Rs250 crore for this ultra-modern research and development project.
Marathe said if the land is not available, then this Rs250-crore project can go outside Maharashtra and it will be a big deterrent for industry in Pune.
He said it is important to note that only another 3.5 acres would be utilised for this expansion and the total area under construction of both existing and proposed development would be less than 5% of the total land. ARAI’s expansion plan does not include any residential construction.
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