PMC opposes State over school lands

PUNE, May 14: The Pune Municipal Administration has sought to differ with the State Government on its controversial proposal to allow commer...

PUNE, May 14: The Pune Municipal Administration has sought to differ with the State Government on its controversial proposal to allow commercial exploitation of 50 per cent area of the plots reserved for primary and secondary schools in Pune by imposing certain pre-conditions on the original plot owners, arguing that the school children would be robbed of their playgrounds.

The civic authorities have pointed out to the State Government through an official communication addressed to the Deputy Director, Town Planning TP, V N Chaudhary, that the proposal was contradictory to its earlier directive, issued under section 154 of Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966, that under no circumstances proposals reducing the area of playgrounds be initiated by the municipal bodies.

City Engineer Madhav Harihar has already presented the municipal administration8217;s point of view in detail during a deposition held before the TP authorities here last month, according to a highly-placed civic official.

The lack of playgrounds in the city would affect the health prospects and personality development of the school children. Pune was already facing the pressures of increasing population and urban planners had rightly anticipated it while initiating the reservations for primary and secondary schools in the early 1980s. The town planning authorities had duly approved of the reservations, it has been stated in the administrative note.

Further, the municipal administration has suggested to the State Government that if at all it planned to go ahead with the proposal, commercial activity should be restricted to only 20 per cent of the plots size. The original owners can still hope for a fairly good compensation package with the Transfer of Development Rights TDR facility being introduced in Pune Municipal Corporation PMC limits recently.

It may be recalled here that the State government had proposed to modify the Development Control DC rules regarding the reserved plots for primary and secondary schools, to permit the owners to commercially exploit 50 per cent area of the plots on condition of surrendering the balance space to the PMC.

The State Urban Development UD department has already sanctioned 8220;partially8221; the proposal and issued a notification on January 4, 1998, inviting suggestions and objections of individuals and organisations from Pune to its proposal. This is because the PMC failed to issue the notification in time. The Patit Pawan Sanghatana PPS had bared the State Government8217;s plan and recorded its strong objection to it early April.