2012 – A year of Protests

A very interesting year indeed! And as always a happening one for India.

We could easily call it a year of protests. On a good note it was a year of rising awareness. People or rather the aam aadmi stepped out on the streets standing against the corruption, or demanding justice as in the case of rape victim. This is probably in the long time that people have been consistently protesting the malfunctioning of government. It is also in a long time that youth has stepped out on the streets demanding a change. 2012 has infused a hope for the forthcoming year. Hopefully 2013 sees the final fall of UPA and Congress.

I wish for a healthy, wealthy and successful 2013 for us all! 

Latest addition to Pune ring-road: A bridge over Khadakwasla backwaters

If the existing ring road plan is not enough, now the government has planned to build an 1850 meters long bridge over one of the last few pristine areas on the fringes of the city. It will join the villages of Sangrun and Khadakwasla over water.

A bridge will span the Khadakwasla lake

A metro has been proposed parallel to the ring road. Over 6000 acres of land will have to be acquired, for which an estimated 2848 crore rupees would be required. The road construction would cost approximately 10408 crores (Maharashtra Times, 24th November 2012). The FSI along the ring road will be 1.75 instead of the regular 0.75. Since the development has metro back up, an 1.75 FSI according to me is quite less. Why not increase it further to 2 , 3 or even 4 for certain parts? A good master plan should be prepared which proposes an increase and decrease of FSI loading considering the geography, location advantage etc to create high and density development. Certain areas such as the hills and mountains should be preserved as open spaces. The balance FSI of these open spaces can be loaded over the more buildable land to achieve the FSI target.

Building a ring road is not going to be enough. The connectivity to and from the city to the ring road must be strengthened. In addition, there is an opportunity to create large accessible open spaces and parks along the mountains and hills thereby adding value to surrounding development and conserving the local ecology.

Large open spaces bordered by highrises in Curitiba, Brazil

But in the end there are a bunch of questions about the effectiveness of the scheme.    

Imagine the scale of change resulting from spending even half the proposed money on improving and adding to the existing infrastructure in the city. Some might argue lack of space for further growth in Pune city, but this is a myth. A visionary plan could create ample amount of land for development. many of the 30-40 year old developments could be redeveloped with much higher FSI after improving the existing infrastructure. Instead of building more roads along the river and other sensitive environments, beautiful promenades and parks could be created.

Apart from a little bit of vision, this needs tremendous political will. A ring road could ensure more growth for the town but not necessarily improve the quality of life for the inner city residents. And what’s the use of growth if it can only benefit a few?