Coronavirus Pune: PMC, SRA discusses community areas’ development options

Coronavirus Pune: PMC, SRA discusses community areas’ development options

Pune: Community areas located under Bhavani Peth, Kasba-Vishrambaug, Parvati, Yerwada, among other ward offices in Pune have emerged as hotspots in the coronavirus pandemic. The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) now is contemplating options to develop these areas in the city.

The civic body will also come up with a master plan for these areas in a week.

Figures indicate more positive patients in community areas compared to other cities areas during the ongoing COVID-19 survey.

Commenting on the issue of community areas, industrialist Ratan Tata recently underlined the need for affordable housing and an end to community areas. He suggested to planners to do something concrete. He observed that vertical slums are being built in the name of their rehabilitation.

In this background, Shekhar Gaikwad, Pune Municipal Commissioner discussed the development of community areas with Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) Commissioner Rajendra Nimbalkar on Tuesday.

Speaking to Sakal Times, Gaikwad said, “Time has come to seriously take up the community areas’ development issue on priority. We discussed it with SRA Commissioner Rajendra Nimbalkar. We have requested the SRA to submit options and plans within a week. We don’t have time. The situation is alarming, and we have to prepare a plan and start discussing so that post-COVID-19, we can make a decision.”

“We discussed various options. One is that PMC will develop community areas on its land as a developer. They will be developed on a Build Operate Transfer (BoT) basis. Another option was to sell out land to private players and ask them to develop them. The third option is to give power of attorney to SRA, which will develop the areas,” he added.

Commenting on the same, Nimbalkar said, “We discussed a long-term plan for the community areas. We are ready to permit PMC to develop them. We have decided to work and plan with PMC. Social distancing is not happening in community areas due to proximity. We cannot ignore them for the betterment of the city.”

“There is around two lakh vulnerable population living in in the community areas. Around 60,000 people live in such areas in Pimpri-Chinchwad. The high population density in these areas is a big issue of hygiene and health. So our priority will develop densely populated community areas on priority. We cannot ignore people living there as they are providing services to the city,” he concluded.

SCENARIO IN PUNE
According to statistics of PMC’s Environment Statistic Report (ESR), thousands of poor or low-income groups are forced to live in community areas. There are 564 such areas in the city. Of these 353 are notified by the government while the remaining 211 are not recognised.

As per Mashal’s (a Non-Governmental Organisation) report titled ‘Slum Atlas of Pune city’ in 2011, there was 32.5 per cent of the population living in these areas. The density there (person/sq. km) is six times higher than the overall density prevailing in the rest of the city.

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