Pune civic body offers land in Kharadi to CBSE for its regional office and Centre of Excellence

“In order to ensure full-fledged systematic establishment and functioning of the Regional Office and Centre of Excellence at Pune, the board requires land measuring two to three acres for the construction of office building, conference hall and another two to three acres for construction of residential complex for the staff,” said Himansu Gupta, Secretary of the CBSE in a request to the PMC last year.

He also said the board agreed to pay the cost of the land as per the rates fixed by the state government. The civic standing committee under Municipal Commissioner Naval Kishore Ram has decided to give the land to the CBSE permanently after recovering its cost as per the policy of the PMC.

PMC Deputy Municipal Commissioner Vasundhara Barve said the civic body had shortlisted a few land parcels it had acquired as amenity spaces and showed it to the CBSE, which then selected the land plot of 8,972.9 sq m in Kharadi to set up their permanent premises. “Last year, the PMC offered the land at a fixed value of Rs 25.13 crore for transferring to the Board. However, as per the changed policy thereafter, it has been proposed to give the land at double the valuation at a cost of Rs 50.26 crore to the CBSE,” Barve said.

She added that the PMC recently transferred 25,735 sq m of land reserved for the transport hub in Mundhwa to the Indian Railways for the development of a satellite railway station in Hadapsar – which would reduce the load of the existing Pune railway station — at double its valuation as the civic body had to pay double compensation to acquire the land from private owners.

Incidentally, the CBSE moved to have a permanent regional office and Centre of Excellence as private schools are adopting the CBSE syllabus for their students to compete at the national level in academics.