PUNE: After more than ten months of the parking policy being approved, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has not yet finalised the five roads to implement parking policy on a trial basis in the city. According to the policy, people will have to pay to park their vehicles along public roads across the city. Now, the administration has pointed fingers at all political party leaders about the decision of selection of five roads and implementing the policy.
Last year, the PMC General Body meeting approved the parking policy in the month of March. The policy had suggested parking charge, but while approving the policy, General Body meeting decided to form a committee of all party leaders of the corporation under the chairmanship of the Mayor, which would review ‘parking lots’ development of last 20 years. The detailed tabled report included parking lots of the corporation where they can construct multi-storeyed parking to develop the lots on Build Operate and Transfer (BoT) basis, to take the decision to select five major roads where the corporation can implement pay-and-park as per policy on an experimental basis. However, no committee has been formed yet even after six months of approval of the policy by General Body meeting.
When city Mayor Mukta Tilak was asked about the committee, she said, “Administration is working on the policy and they are studying five roads where they want to implement the pay and park project on pilot basis.
Meanwhile Municipal Commissioner Saurabh Rao said, “We have selected five areas for implementing the policy on a pilot basis and given it to the party leaders. Now, they have to decide on the five roads of those areas. On the other side, we are checking the feasibility of off-road and on-road parking facilities in five areas so that if leaders give permission, we can implement it.”
POSITIVE DECISION ON DEFENCE HEIGHT RESTRICTION
During media interaction, Rao said, “We conveyed our concerns to the Defence Ministry about height restriction on the city construction applied by them. We are following up the issue with Subhash Bhamre, Union Minister of State for Defence. They have shown positive response and we are expecting a positive decision in coming days.”
Considering the far-reaching impact on the city infrastructure of the Defence Ministry’s rule that developers should obtain a No Objection Certificate (NoC) owing to height restrictions on constructions in an area of 12 km around defence establishments, the PMC has requested the Defence Ministry through the State Urban Development Department to relax the height restriction norms.
The PMC had already expressed fear of a serious impact of the rule on the overall development of the city as well as growing unauthorised constructions. Municipal Commissioner Rao had also made a detailed presentation of restrictions on the city development in front of Bhamre. In April 2018, the Defence Ministry issued a Colour Coded Zoning Map (CCZM) and mentioned the site elevation (height restriction) of that area with a different colour. From that day, the city’s development has been hampered.
