How Town Planning Scheme Will Decongest Pune's Hinjewadi

It seems the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) has finally decided to address the infrastructure woes in city's most prominent information technology district. As Hinjewadi has already saturated when it comes to residential and commercial real estate development, the PMRDA is coming up with town planning scheme that would serve twin purposes, to decongest Hinjewadi and build new towns on the peripheries to cater to the growing population.

Decongesting Hinjewadi

People travelling to the IT Park at Hinjewadi have to suffer traffic woes while passing from Wakad. Currently, commuters end up spending up to an hour to cross this stretch due to narrow roads and peak-time congestion. As a solution, the PMRDA came up with a new plan to build an alternative route that would pass through Baner and Balewadi. Though 50 per cent of the construction is already done, the remaining work has been stalled due to delay in land acquisition. For this, the authority is planning to acquire land under the Town Planning Scheme under which land thus acquired from the farmers would be developed, and 50 per cent of this developed plot would be returned to them with double FSI (floor space index).

As Hinjewadi cannot be expanded further, the exerting pressure on the area has resulted in the shortage of water in some of the housing societies and dependency on water tanks in few of them. The new projects coming up in the region are assuring regular water supply as the facilities of underground reservoir and water recycling plant has been installed for fulfilling daily water needs for household choirs. Moreover, internal roads remain congested during peak hours which makes the location unattractive for buyers and investors. After the Hinjewadi-Shivaji Nagar Metro route is operational, it would decongest the main streets.

Ring road development

Apart from building an alternative route to Hinjewadi, several clusters are being planned to be developed to unburden Hinjewadi. These clusters would come up on 129-km long Ring Road, to be conceived by the PMRDA. This cluster development will also take place under the Town Planning Scheme. Some of the clusters with corporate and manufacturing hubs would be built near the Chakan industrial belt and close to the proposed airport site at Purandar. These clusters will be coming up on the government land while the PMRDA would acquire land and develop them into private plots. The land would be monetised to finance infrastructure projects.

How to apply in Town Planning Scheme?

Those who are interested in Town Planning Scheme can download the PMRDA Mobile App or can go through the print advertisement published in newspapers. Since the PMRDA is yet to get a permanent office of its own, Pune Municipal Corporation officials are the ones responsible for the functioning of the PMRDA.