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Indian Express
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
NGO proposes to allow partial development of private land in Pune's Bio Diversity Park area
As the Maharashtra Government takes up a study determine ways to conserve the hills in Pune city reserved as a Bio Diversity Park (BDP), the NGO Pune Paryavaran Manch has appealed to the government to allow the owners of private land in the zone to develop at least 10 per cent of their land on condition of compulsorily planting trees in the remaining land. Though the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) had passed a resolution reserving over 1,000 acres of land as BDP, the state government has not taken any decision with regard to it over the last 28 years due to objections raised by private landowners. Around 200 acres of this land is owned by government agencies while the remaining is private. There has been much deliberation about the land, with environmentalists and civil society groups pressing to maintain the green cover while the landowners cite the financial loss this entails for them. A lot of encroachment has also taken place on private and government-owned hilltops and slopes under the BDP. The state government has now appointed a committee under former bureaucrat Ramanath Jha to study the zone and make suggestions. The committee will hear landowners, environmentalists, and civil society members. 'It has been 28 years since the PMC passed a resolution to make the hills a BDP zone but the state government has not taken a final decision on it. The status of the land has changed a lot since then with most of it being encroached upon,' said Deepak Kudale, working president of the Pune Paryavaran Manch. He said if the PMC wants to acquire the land and retain it as BDP, then it cannot afford to do so either through cash or Transferable Development Rights (TDR) compensation. 'The best way is to retain the green cover, allowing at least 10 per cent construction on the land while making it compulsory to plant and grow trees. This will provide justice to landowners and enable the PMC to ensure green cover without spending money to acquire land,' said Kudale. Manch secretary Sudhirkaka Kulkarni said hill stations in the state are developed without any danger to the environment so there is no need for BDP in the city. The proposal to acquire land by giving 8 per cent TDR to landowners is not feasible as its processing fee is more than the compensation which the landowners will get, he said, adding that the government has to ensure the compensation should be as per market rates and under the Union government's stipulations. Those pressing on BDP reservation have neither planted trees or done anything on their own to protect the green cover of the city, said Kulkarni.
Hindustan Times
27-04-2025
- General
- Hindustan Times
State committee to launch drone survey to identify BDP encroachments
Even after two decades, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has failed to acquire any of the 976 hectares of land reserved for the Biodiversity Park (BDP) across 23 merged villages, except for a portion used for the Chandni Chowk flyover. A state government-appointed committee on Friday decided to carry out a drone survey to get a clear picture of encroachments on BDP areas. The reserved BDP land includes 124.45 hectares of government and 853.09 hectares of privately owned land. The BDP was planned to protect Pune's hilltops and slopes — often called the city's 'lungs' — but remains mostly a plan on paper. Illegal constructions and encroachments have continued to spread, with officials admitting that nearly 10% of the reserved land is already encroached upon. The state has appointed a committee, led by former IAS officer Ramanath Jha, to draft new development control regulations for these areas. The committee recently decided to conduct a drone survey to identify encroachments and assess the current situation. 'One of the decisions taken at Friday's meeting was to carry out a drone survey of BDP areas to figure out the extent of encroachments,' said a senior official from the PMC's building permission and development department requesting anonymity. According to PMC records, major anti-encroachment drives were carried out in 2000 and again in 2021. In 2020, about 16,000 square feet of illegal structures were demolished. In March 2021, the PMC issued around 200 notices for illegal constructions and cleared approximately 1.34 lakh square feet of encroachments, including sheds and RCC structures. The action was taken in Katraj (new and old limits), Ambegaon Budruk and Khurd, Yewalewadi, Dhayari, Hingne Khurd, Vadgaon Budruk and Khurd, Baner, Balewadi, Bavdhan, Kothrud, Warje, Bibwewadi, Kondhwa Khurd, Hadapsar (old limit), Wanowrie, and Parvati. The idea of a Biodiversity Park was first proposed in 1997 when 23 villages were merged into PMC limits. The 2002 draft Development Plan (DP) suggested protecting the hills under the BDP reservation. After political debates — with Congress and Shiv Sena supporting a fully green plan, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and NCP favouring limited construction — the reservation was finally approved in 2005. However, bureaucratic delays pushed the government's formal approval of the BDP policy to 2015, with a compensation model introduced through Transfer of Development Rights (TDR). Landowners, however, rejected the TDR model, citing poor market rates and demanding cash compensation instead. PMC's slow progress and shortage of manpower allowed encroachments to thrive. Landowners, unable to legally develop or sell land due to restrictions, informally sold plots, leading to unauthorized constructions that continue despite periodic action. Civic activist Sudhir Kaka Kulkarni raised concerns over earlier flawed surveys, which had mistakenly placed BDP reservations on already developed residential areas, creating disputes. 'The survey will help identify encroachments, but the committee's decision afterwards is crucial. There is a risk that some landowners may be favoured,' Kulkarni said. He pointed out that two separate surveys — one by C-DAC and another by Monarch Surveyors and Engineering Consultants — had been conducted before including BDP reservations in the development plan. 'Which survey the committee considers as the baseline will also be critical,' he added. During the Covid-19 pandemic, PMC recorded a spike in encroachments on BDP land. After the lockdown, the building permission department cleared over 1 lakh square feet of illegal structures. Despite the action, the challenge persists largely because of dissatisfaction among landowners with TDR compensation, leading many to sell small plots informally.
Indian Express
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Why 100-200 people in Pune are signing this green petition every hour
Across the city, thousands of citizens are signing a petition, titled 'Protecting Hills of Pune: Appeal to Committee on Bio-Diversity Park (BDP) and Hill Top Hill Slope (HTHS), demanding 'strict enforcement of no-construction on hills and its slopes, legal protection for hills as natural heritage and timely and strict action against erring government servants failing in their assigned duties for protection of the said areas', among others. Every hour, there are 100-200 people signing the online form. The petition is addressed to former Pune Municipal Commissioner Ramanath Jha, Chairman of the state-appointed Committee on BDP and HTHS in Pune. The committee was formed on April 8 to review the BDP and HTHS and submit its report by May 9. 'We are very scared that they will come back to saying that they will allow construction on hills,' says Vandana Chavan, former Pune Mayor and Rajya Sabha MP, the force behind the present campaign. The letter begins with: 'We, the citizens of Pune, through the Committee constituted under your Chairmanship, urge the government of Maharashtra to uphold the promise to protect our city hills, hill slopes, and green zones from any construction. These natural spaces constitute the very identity of Pune and, more importantly, are essential for the ecological balance, environmental protection and climate resilience, not only of Pune but also the entire region,' reads the petition before listing its six demands. The petition ends with the reminder that 'Protecting our hills is non-negotiable – we owe it to future generations. With Pune already facing the impacts of climate change, rising temperatures and alarming pollution levels, it is our collective duty to let Pune breathe'. The Background 'There are two major development plans for the city – one is for the old limits and the other is for the 23 merged villages. The hills in the old city are called HTHS and there are zones where no construction can happen, except to the tune of 4% only on land above one acre. In the 23 villages, it was called BDP, and these are reservations. So, the government has to acquire it. This development plan was passed in 2015 and the government, simultaneously, made certain rules so as to not allow illegal constructions to come up on those hills,' says Chavan. She adds that two major rules were – a notification that said that every six months, the municipal corporation has to take satellite images to see if any illegal construction is mushrooming. Secondly, the government also took out a notification that the municipal corporation will assign duty to officers who would be called beat officers, to make sure they will be responsible for dealing with any illegal construction in their jurisdictions. A first-ever law was introduced that if the government servants failed in their duty, they would be penalised with a fine and imprisonment. Never was there such a law earlier,' she added. Approximately 978 hectares of the land is reserved under BDP, and some of the hill slope land belongs to private owners. Chavan says that it has been observed that 'for a long time, the government, which should have paid compensation to the owners of the lands on the hills, has taken no steps. There was a Jain committee report which recommended that they should be given 8% of Transferable Development Rights (TDR) but the government has not moved in that regard'. The result has been that there are many citizens who have voluntarily taken it upon themselves to do plantations on barren hills. On the other hand, a lot of people have carried out illegal construction on the hills too. Chavan adds that she was motivated to start the campaign because the committee was formed to 'have a relook at the policies'. In the circular about the committee, the government said that it had received a lot of representation from land owners. 'The fact remains that the land was reserved and there was no question of giving it to the owners. The committee is seeking representation only from owners, not from Punekars. We have, therefore, embarked upon a signature campaign to say that we still stand by what was decided and they should not let down the promise given by the government 10 years ago,' she said. One of the appeals in the petition is for 'timely and strict implementation of compensation to landowners of reserved BDP areas'. 'When the development plan was passed, it was decided on the basis of a lot of representations from the citizens of Pune that there will be no construction whatsoever on the hills. The state and the local governments have failed in their duty and to protect the hills and to compensate the owners. Now, how can they even plan on rethinking how to treat the hills of Pune?' added Chavan. Thousands and counting At present, the petition has received 5,000 physical signatures and 20,000 online signatures. The number is expected to increase as the campaign continues. The deadline for the signatures is April 27. 'We will go through the signatures and forms, do the numbering, and submit it to the PMC in the first week of May,' says Ameya Jagtap, core team member of Green Pune movement that is leading the campaign. He added that while the online petition has gone viral, the physical signature outreach is also being held in housing societies, senior citizens' clubs, parks, gardens and plantation groups, among others. 'Signature campaign is a medium to appeal to people, reach out and tell them of what is happening at the moment and what the government is planning to do. The entire green community is working on this. The Green Pune movement is a coalition of many other environmental organisations that work in the city,' said Jagtap.
