Prasaddeshpande

From last few years there is buzz around all corners of India that Pune will be one of the fastest budding metro. According to the one of the report published by global real estate tracker Cushman & Wakefield (C&W), Pune city will see a whopping 51 per cent compounded growth over the next five years — the highest for any Indian city.

The projection given out is on four sections of real estate viz. retail, office space, residential and hotel rooms.

“Pune is expected to see the highest compounded annual growth in retail demand at 51 per cent, owing to favourable demographics.

The total expected retail space demand for the city is projected at approximately 1.76 million square feet, office space at 21.7 million square feet, residential at 4 lakh plus units and hotel rooms’ demand at 30,000 rooms per night,” says the report.
Now my first question is are we ready to digest this level; of growth rate. Even if we consider 7 years instead of five years; is it possible..???
If you ask to any Punekar the answer will be a certain “No” .
What are the Hurdles

1)Roads:
When I am saying Roads ,I mean to say the internal roads.
I was just going through a article related to obesity. In that author’s statement was; if you are obsessed by even 1.5 kg in that case your body had to develop blood vessels of different sizes which calculates to a length of around 20000 kms.
The similar equation is applicable to any city.
Every day thousands of new vehicles are pouring in the city. And unfortunately the action plan is lacking and lagging.
If we consider The Mumbai model , even then we need to be innovative.
The sky walks and metros being constructed throughout Mumbai city have created chaos for pedestrians. Forget the damages to the drainage system. Mumbai cannot deal with ongoing construction on a huge scale considering its population and transportation problems. If Mumbai is facing such chaos, is Pune ready to take on the responsibility of better transportation techniques? If yes, should it just copy another city or should it work towards a better infrastructural plan first?
The working and student population in Pune is vast. As a result, people travel daily on a large scale. Since everybody faces a proximity problem in covering distances in the city people purchase two wheelers resulting in a rise of vehicles plunging on roads. The rickshaw fares prove expensive and buses are irregular and do not allow access to every place. They are also very complicated to a new comer or a non Maharashtrian. Thus, a vehicle does the trick, but causes pollution levels, road accidents and traffic all drastically to increase.
But what people fail to understand is that Pune is developing at a faster rate than any other city in India. The roads in Pune suffer from proper maintenance as well as lack of development due to the innumerable vehicular traffic that rides everyday on the roads. There are no footpaths alongside the roads and Pune faces worse situations in its interiors.
Ring Roads :
Since last many years every politician is just showing dream of ring rod to Punekar.
Nothing is really coming to a common man in Pune.
Land acquisition is one of the biggest hurdle.

Metro:
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This is another jargon on which all politicians are playing the GAME OF“KHO KHO “
I strongly believe if people movement on this issue is not going to take place then we will be wasting thousand s of crores. This will be a repeat story of BRT.
People started talking about sky tracks for metro, but my question is,”is it feasible??”
We need to work on underground roots.
Water:
Every Punekar is blamed for the amount of water he wasted per day.
We definitely need to work on this but “Aukta Shri Zagade” has already raised a billion dollar question about leakage of water.
He has proved with statistical data that, PUNE IS GETTING 14 TMC WATER SUPPLY PER YEAR, BUT ONLY 7 TMC WATER REACHES TO PUNEKAR.
Remaining 7 TMC water is wasted , leaked .This leakage is a main source of “Water Tankers” in Pune.
Growth of So called Townships :

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According to township norms the builder is supposed to take care of the basic needs of the citizen of township.
But now a days builders started announcing 20+ acre residential schemes. Builders create a impression that his project is a town ship,to attract people.
Builder is not following any norm of township so this so called township create a burden on PMC or PCMC S Infrastructure.
Planned growth of the city :
Pune ig growing like a tummy of a person. There is no planned movement . So many times it results in pocketwise unplanned growth. This futher overloads corporations supply system. We also need to consider the virus of slums. This virus has a tremendous growth rate in Pune.
Airport :
With this kind of growth rate we need to plan one domestic and one international Airport for 24 hours.
Once again we can see a lack of vision and more unfortunate is lack of intensity to complete declared Govt. Infrastructural projects.
Rail way Routes:
Even after conducting many international events ; Govt has failed to provide international look , and international way of working at Pune Railway Station.
One of the biggest differrence between Bombay and Pune is “Local trains”.
In fact this is going to prove big loss to Pune.
We have never ever thought of laying down railway tracks for Locals in various areas of Pune,when the city was in growing stage. This is going to have a very long term effect on Pune’s growth rate.
A well thought model of railway locals might have pushed Pune, at least 5 years ahead of current growth rate.
In part two of this article we will be discussing more about the current situation and probable solutions to it.

RAJESHP

You had the poll now, please summarize, Draw conclusions based on the poll result.

compuwalah

PMC is ordering crate full of Haajmola