PMC plans to redevelop crumbling Wadas

The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is set to draw up a master plan to redevelop around 10,000 old properties in the city (majority of them old wadas).The decision follows the Supreme Court’s order on Thursday upholding state government’s Development Control Rule 33(7) allowing builders to avail of virtually unlimited floor space index (FSI) in Mumbai while redeveloping all pre-1940 buildings,including chawls.City engineer Prashant Waghmare says, “The DC rule 33(7) is Mumbai-specific and has no implications for Pune. However, the ruling sets a precedent for the PMC to look at similar policy decisions to redevelop old dilapidated wadas here and a master plan is a major step towards achieving this.”Redevelopment of old properties in Pune has remained entangled in legal and policy matters for many decades. As per the PMC Development Plan (DP) of 1987, it was decided that wada dwellers would be rehabilitated within the old city limits, but things never moved beyond the planning stage. In 2005-06, the civic standing committee made a budgetary provision of Rs 1 crore to repair dilapidated wadas, but these funds were never utilised. The PMC took an initiative in 2007, where the City Improvement Committee drafted a policy which is still awaiting government approval.The civic body has identified around 18,000 old properties in Kasba Peth, Budhwar Peth, Shaniwar Peth, Nana Peth, Bhavani Peth, Ganj Peth and Narayan Peth, of which about 10,000 are very old. “Some of these properties need immediate repair works or redevelopment. The PMC is conducting a land-use survey for the new Development Plan (DP). We will come out with a special policy under the master plan for redevelopment of old structures and we will also have macro- and micro-level planning for the same,” said Waghmare.He added, “The redevelopment and repairs of wadas would be possible once we have a clear policy related to it. With the PMC coming out with a master plan, we are hopeful that incidents of wadas collapsing and lives being endangered will soon be a thing of the past.”Moreover, Waghmare said, the problem of dilapidated wadas should be tackled keeping in mind practical and social requirements. Despite issuing notices, till now, the tenants in these wadas have been reluctant to move out and the PMC has not been in a position to force eviction, he said.In 2007, around 56 incidents of wadas collapsing were recorded compared to 51 in 2006.In March, this year, a father and son died when the roof of an old dilapidated wada had collapsed.