Pune Municipal Corporation to acquire land under public reservation

Following sustained reporting by DNA, Pune municipal commissioner Mahesh Pathak on Tuesday ordered the acquisition of large plots of land under vital public reservation in Bopodi.

The reservations are located on the land with survey numbers 37, 86 where Avinash Bhosale Infrastructure Ltd’s (ABIL) super-luxurious residential project, Castel Royale, is coming up.

The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) had maintained a stony silence on these reservations over the past many years and refused to take a stand, even after the matter was brought to light by this newspaper.

Finally, late on Tuesday night, Pathak issued orders for acquiring the land under public reservations. Confirming this, city engineer Prashant Waghmare told DNA, “The commissioner has ordered the acquisition of land under reservations for EWS (economic weaker section), CPG (children’s playground) and PS (public school).”

Waghmare said the civic chief had written to the state government, asking it to authorise the PMC to acquire the land at the earliest. “We will start the process immediately,” he said.

In a series of exclusive reports since May 25, DNA had highlighted that the PMC was not taking any steps to acquire large portions of land reserved in Bopodi for important public projects. Turn to p3

PMC to acquire land for EWS, playground around Castel Royale

The area earmarked for reservation included 69,438 square metres for PS, CPG on 2,618 square metres, housing for EWS on 32,671.50 square metres and a 24-metre high capacity mass transit route (HCMTR) and a 30-metre DP Road.

All of these reservations are located on the vast tract of land located near the Khadki Gate of the University of Pune, where the Castel Royale project is coming up on a portion of unreserved land.

Of the total 32,671.50 square metres of land under the EWS reservation, the state government had converted 13,715.60 square meters of land into residential zone in 1990.

While the land with the reservations is now in the possession of ABIL, the original title holder of the land, city-based orthopedic surgeon, Dr Satyasheel Naik, had written to the urban development department (UDD) of the state government seeking removal of the remaining EWS reservation of his land. When asked about this, Naik said he had sold the land to ABIL, who should be asked about its status.

On September 16, 2009, the UDD had written to the PMC asking for its opinion regarding Naik’s request. File inspections by DNA indicated that the PMC had not taken any decision about the reservations and not replied to the UDD’s letter.

Reacting to DNA’s report, ABIL’s executive director, Amit Bhosale, issued a statement clarifying that the company would respect the public reservations. However, the civic chief remained silent when asked about the steps taken by him to protect the reservations. Following reports by DNA, Dalit leaders from the city — such as Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) Jaideo Gaikwad and Republican Party of India’s (RPI) Parashuram Wadekar — had demanded that the civic body take immediate steps to acquire the land.