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This is an archive article published on April 30, 2018

Maha govt decision to change land tenures: In Pimpri, over 1,000 properties to benefit

Cabinet’s decision to convert land tenures clears the decks for redevelopment of properties; Sindhi community hails move

pimpri chindwad, maha govt, land tenure rules, freehold, lease, indian express Sindhi refugees settled at Pimpri Camp between 1947 and 1950. Express

More than 1,000 properties in Pimpri Camp are likely to benefit by the state government’s decision to convert land tenures of all such properties from leasehold to freehold. The decision to convert land tenures from leasehold to freehand was taken by the state Cabinet last week, thereby clearing the decks for the redevelopment of such properties.

The process for the land tenure conversion in the state was first initiated in 2006, but the benefit had so far been extended to settlements in the districts of Dhule and Jalgoan. On Tuesday, the Cabinet extended the conversion model to colonies in all the remaining districts as well. The conversion of land tenure will allow the land owners to sell, mortgage or redevelop their properties without government restriction.

Around 30 lakh Sindhi migrants had settled in 31 refugee camps across Maharashtra after the partition in 1947. Pimpri Camp in Pimpri-Chinchwad was one of the camps where refugees settled between 1947 and 1950, after they had initially landed in Aundh refugee camp.

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Harish Bodani, an activist from the Sindhi community, said the Sindhi population in Pimpri was around 40,000. “Some of the families had the ownership rights, but many were deprived of it. Now, with the government giving a green signal, all community members will have a right over their land,” he said.

Bodani said although the number of properties that have freehold rights and those without it are not known, they believe that at least 1,000 properties would benefit from the government’s decision. “For want of ownership rights, several properties could not be developed. As a result, they are in derelict condition. Once the residents get the ownership right, the redevelopment process would begin,” he said.

Another Sindhi community leader Amar Moolchandani said the government has taken too long to give justice to the community. “It has taken 70 years for the government to do justice to the community. While other countrymen enjoyed ownership rights, Sindhis got a raw deal which affected their progress. Now, the government must ensure that the community gets concession for redeveloping their properties,” he said.

Activist Shridhar Chalkha said the Sindhi community has shown tremendous entrepreneur skills. “Pimpri Camp is the hub of Pimpri-Chinchwad where crowd from all parts of the city descend for shopping. Besides, the sumptuous\ delicacies rustled up by Pimpri hoteliers and eateries are a big hit among the public,” he said.

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Usha Karnani, a prominent person from Sindhi community, said: “The Sindhi community is spread in Wanavadi, Lullanagar and Pune camps. In Pimpri, majority of them are refugees but it is not so in case of other areas,” she said. “In Pimpri, the refugees continued to stay on leased government land and could not get ownership rights. The government’s decision will certainly help those who could not redevelop their properties for years.”

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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