PMC general body okays draft development plan

Decision comes two months before the deadline for publishing draft DP ends to seek suggestions and objections from citizens

A year after the civic administration prepared it, the general body of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) gave its nod to the draft development plan (DP) of Pune city on Monday. The decision comes two months before the deadline gets over for publishing the draft plan to seek suggestions and objections from citizens, failing which the plan would be decided by the state government.

The draft DP has been mired in controversy from the beginning even as the state government has warned of withdrawing the power of PMC to prepare the plan due to the delay on its part in drafting it. The tenure of the previous DP ended in 2007 and there had been no move by the PMC to prepare a revised DP. The state government had extended the deadline for the civic body to prepare the DP.

Accordingly, the then municipal commissioner appointed city engineer Prashant Waghmare as planning officer for preparing the DP while relieving him of his routine duties. The civic administration took a year to prepare the draft and tabled it before the city improvement committee in December 2011, which cleared it in October 2012.

Later, the ruling NCP rushed to get the draft DP approved but faced opposition from all political parties who demanded a presentation for all. The decision on it was further delayed after the elected representatives sought a copy of the draft DP in Marathi.

On Monday, BJP and MNS tried to oppose the discussion on the DP seeking explanation from the civic administration on the draft DP. However, Mayor Vaishali Bankar clarified that the elected representatives were only allowed to give speeches, not to ask questions.

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