Sunday, April 28, 2024

Why People Vote!















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“Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”
 Abraham Lincoln

“The best argument for democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
 Winston S. Churchill

“You Vote, means you believe in Hope” … Me

 

Two great names (of course not Me) who have been leaders of the greatest democracies of the world (no offense, India is recent & I am referring to the past) & an eye opener for the voters which are the backbone for democracy. Mr Lincoln’s role for the USA can be compared to what Mahatma Gandhi is for our country & Mr Churchill was Prime Minister of England in World War 2 era. The reason of this sharing is, not that suddenly I started having interest in politics nor I am some political or social expert (though in Pune you don’t need any special qualification for being expert on anything, lol) but a news which said our so-called developed State has seen lowest percentage of voting in first two phases of voting which is for deciding fate of the country i.e. General Assembly i.e. Lok Sabha elections or 18th term! Agreed we are in the phase of one of the worst summers of the century yet the news also said, it’s about the reluctance of the so-called educated voters which refrained themselves from voting & that’s the main concern is what I feel! The problem in our country about education (read as in general) is once we get some degree, we think we know about everything, may it be of any field & we make our judgments not just opinions! And one major judgement about elections is, “yaha, kuchh nahi badalenewala” (nothing will change) so why vote! Here we conveniently forget a basic rule about change that any change starts from our own self & when we say nothing will change here & don’t vote under that logic, it’s us who are refusing to change, is my purpose of this sharing!

Guys, I won’t waste time in explaining what Lok Sabha elections are & its importance for our country or society as if that is needed then don’t read ahead because what I want to share is understanding the importance of your own vote, elections or not doesn’t matter actually! It’s about the attitude not to vote is the main problem & if voting is just some 58% then nearly 42% people don’t value their own vote in our society is the logic! And look at the effect of this non-voting approach, in hypothetical figures. If there are 10,00,000 (ten lakh) legal voters in an election for a Lok Sabha seat & out of that only 58% voters vote then it’s just 5,80,000 people who have voted. Now if there are some fifteen candidates contesting for the LS seat from this constituency & four of them are representing major parties & gets nearly 80% of total votes among them & if margin of the winner is 50,000 votes, then at the most, he will be getting 2,50,000 votes making it just 25% of the total voter’s vote. This means the elected candidate will be representing the entire constituency only because just 25% of voters have chosen him, will he or she be able to do justice to the job, ask yourself! Here you may say even all the ten lakh voters would have voted even then it won’t be that 100% of them will vote the same person & I agree that but it’s the pressure of all ten lakh voters has votes & that means he is responsible or answerable to ten lakh people is the responsibility on the candidate, is we are forgetting! In any democracy always there will be nearly 50% of the people which will remain unhappy as their vote didn’t got them the candidate which they voted in power but that doesn’t mean their vote has been wasted, it means there are more people who wants another person in ruling yet the message is clear, you value power of your vote & you executed your power by voting, this aspect of democracy we are missing by not voting is what I wanted to share! And by avoiding voting, in a way we are allowing the entire country to be run by mere mercy of the 25% voter’s choice, is what we need to understand!

One more aspect of voting by all is, whichever candidate gets elected he or she knows that all the voters has voted in the election & that figure the respective candidate is answerable to especially to those who hasn’t voted to him or her as then the responsibility to perform increases with the increased numbers of the voters! Take example of the society we are living in, when any member doesn’t come to vote in the society meeting which has been called for taking decision on some work to be carried out in the society & yet if the society goes ahead for execution of that work & later the member objects for the work then he has morally no right as he didn’t vote, the same principle is applicable for elections of local body (PMC) or the country (Lok Sabha), right? And then problem is not just about not voting in one election but its reflection of our attitude towards our responsibility as today its Lok Sabha election, tomorrow it might be State Assembly, after that there may be civic body (Municipality) of city & if we keep on avoiding voting then we don’t deserve a good government because we ourself have chosen to keep away from forming a government! And then we will keep complaining this govt don’t work, that govt is corrupt but we forget that we only allow this govt to be in power by opting not to vote, this is my point of sharing!

Lastly, the political parties & politicians also must soul search about their behaviour (I know I am fooling myself but we should not give up trying, right?) as when someone votes then that vote may or may not be in favour of them as an individual or as a party but that voting is by believing on some promise & stand that candidate (as well its party) has taken while appealing voters to vote & when after election that promise is broken & the stand is changed, then people start disbelieving the voting system itself, which results in avoiding voting, is also a big factor in lesser voting percentage in our State! At the same time the agenda or promises you are throwing on the face of the voters also must be by understanding voter’s needs which unfortunately is deteriorating with every election, especially Nation level elections like this. We need development & progress but the fact is, right from choosing the candidate to winning elections all things revolve around issues which are hardly of any interest to the common man. And if you don’t believe me then read the current news (about election campaigns) or speak with common voters which are around us. Every candidate is speaking about how other party has made mistakes & how they are corrupt & caste & religion & free electricity, free food grains, free education, reservations in govt jobs, caste wise census (janganana) & such but where is development, creating jobs in private sector, skill development, affordable housing, basic infrastructure like water & public health & many such issues, nobody give any concrete promise on that, this is one more reason people are fade up with elections! Though if someone makes a mistake & we react with another mistake is not a right thing but here is where wisdom differs from education, please think over dear non-voting citizens! Rather when it comes to voting the so called poor & uneducated people are wiser than we the learned as they know this is the only hope or chance they have, to change their fate i.e. by voting!  At the same time by just casting your vote your responsibility is not done, rather it's started from here as for the next five years your vote has given you the right to ask questions about your needs to the candidate which gets elected via your voting!

I had first thought of giving the title to this sharing as “Why People Don’t Vote” but it would have given the wrong message so changed it to “Why People Vote” as people vote as they believe in hope that they can make change & that hope never dies rather with every voting it increases! Friends, to conclude, I will say only one thing, to vote is not just your right but it’s a sign that you are alive & you respect as well realize the power you hold within & if you don’t respect that power within, don’t ever expect others to respect you or your needs, so do vote for your own self-respect, adios with this note!

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Sanjay Deshpande 

smd156812@gmail.com

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about finding a Right Home/ Office in Pune, at YouTube link below & share if liked...

 

https://youtu.be/27j3I3rwGPQ?si=-ODYBxVI2Dl_C345

 

Please do visit my blog links below to read about real estate & home buying! 

https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2024/01/choosing-your-home-along-with-future-of.html

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2023/02/blog-post.html


Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below) 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345

For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below

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Take your issues to Hon PM at link below...

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Think Green, Think Life

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Thursday, April 25, 2024

A Storyteller named Forest!



                                    
                                     

   

                                       

                                        
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To learn something from you, the forest silently observes you and quietly listens to you! If you want to learn something from the forest, do the same thing… Mehmet Murat ildan.

 

Forest has many stories hidden within & only when you enter into those thickset of greens & start talking to the forest, you start listening to them…  Me.

The First quote is by one of the most versatile (many call him insane) thinkers of our era from Turkistan & another one is by me as I also get tagged by same quality & there ends similarity between us but love for the forests is one more similarity, I must say! This summer when I started for Pench & Kanha via Nagpur, though the trip was for work also yet it has been quite a time I have visited at leisure & in summer with clear sky & temperature soaring above forty degrees all day long, & I was pepped up for meeting the Sal & Sag (teak trees & Sal trees) as more than tiger (many will smirk) that landscape fascinates me though seeing a tiger on that background is sheer magic! But, like my last n numbers of trips to Kanha in last nearly six years, while my car was on Samruddhi Highway towards Nagpur the clouds started filling the sky & downpour started & hailstorm stuck us with such ferocious way that we had to take shelter under a bridge & I knew the future of trip ahead! Well, I love forests in any weather & though personally I don’t like getting wet in gipsy yet when the sky becomes cloudy then you really can’t enjoy forest as the activity stops in the forest when sky doesn’t get cleared after the rains which has been a routine for me in Kanha for last many visits! And what happened to green forests like Pench & Kanha, it’s like a sheer wall of green Sal trees & the entire backdrop with low light becomes black or grey making it impossible to even see the colours of the birds which also get silent in such weathers! The logic may be entire forest’s life move around Sun & suddenly when for day long sun goes behind the clouds for day long then the animals & birds must be getting confused about their daily routine which is tied up with Sun’s movement & all jungle comes to stand still! What happens in tadoba (my experience), it does rains but in an hour the sky gets cleared & life resumes to normal, unfortunately with Kanha & Pench’s huge green cover may the clouds lingers a bit long here making the sky dark for long time, though its nature & we can’t do anything about it!

And I had meetings with senior forest officers at Nagpur for making Media (news media) aware about covering wildlife related news, which is an important aspect especially for people living in urban areas, so this was a work & wildlife trip. After the Samruddhi HighWay came in place, for me driving from Pune to Nagpur has become a routine yet the stretch between Pune to Aurangabad is still an issue with first nearly 80 km from Pune taking maximum time, yet once you are on Samruddhi & even if you keep a steady 90km/ hr speed, total ten hours it takes from Pune to Nagpur which was earlier nearly fifteen hours! First morning at Kanha & the sky was all black, there was chilling wind & usually when at this time of year (mid-April) you don’t even need a full sleeves shirt, I had to wear a jacket & now you can imagine the weather! From there for the entire six safaris there were clouds in the sky & the Sun just showed its face in phases & gave me the opportunity to click the Sal frames! Even the guides & gipsy driver’s mood was low as they knew with this weather sighting of the tiger & wildlife in general goes down & they were right!

Here is where one needs to take as much advantage to enter into conversation with guides & get as much information about the forests at large from them instead of getting frustrated with nature, is what I will recommend! As the guides & drivers are pandora of information because they have grown up in these forests & unless you open them up to tell the stories about trees, places, tigers by starting a dialogue with them as not many tourists are interested in doing that, these people won’t speak on their own! I started asking questions about everything around & even when I thought I knew most of the things about these forests I realized how little I know! The guide told me about a creeper named Bohemia Bilai & the story of how this name got. It’s a creeper which has big identical leaves like twins & the name Bohemia Bilali is from the names of twins of an Englishman who first discovered the creeper! The creeper is very strong & used as rope also in nearby villages as well the leaf is used to make eating plates & bowls! On one such cloud-filled sky drive the guide showed me a big tree of which bark has been peeled off till nearly 12 ft height & asked me who could have done this! I knew India Gaurs eat bark of the trees but to this much height is impossible & even monkeys can do such job as limitations of their teeth & tiger can’t peel of the bark in this fashion while sharpening its claws or making territory markings, so who it can be as there are no elephants in this part of the forest; & answer was, Porcupine! Such a small animal & this was totally new information to me. Interestingly, Porcupines with danger of dealing with its thrones are the most favoured food of a tiger & many tigers have got seriously injured in killing a Porcupine yet never give-up the hunt! The guide’s take was, the tiger wants to eat the heart of the Porcupine for reasons only known to the tigers, lol!  You may laugh & many will say what's the use of this rubbish information & if no sighting then what's the use of going to the forests, well your choice is all I can say! As, indeed we all go to the forests to see those yellow black stripes by spending our time as well as money but to see a tiger is something that depends on a lot many things & nature (weather) is one major of them which you can't control! But by interacting with drivers & guides you can get to see many things in & around the forests which or else takes a back seat in our zest of seeing a tiger. As well, the more you start knowing about finer details of the forest the more interesting it becomes to see a tiger or any wild animal, because now you start understanding the language of the forest & once you achieve that, you are able to enjoy any sort of weather in the forest with tiger or no tiger sighting!

One interesting thing this time I get to observe in Pench this time & off late in Kanha is not many tigers walk on the road & reason may be the tigers (male & female) that have ruled for more than a decade in these two forests have passed away. Reasons of tigers death are death by age (legendary Collerwali in Pench & Munna at Kanha) & few have died due to territorial fights & few in man-animal conflict but outcome is the tigers which are habitual with the humans (read as tourist’s gypsies) are gone & the new tigers are shy & not used to the sight of tourist vehicles. Outcome is the sight of a tiger walking boldly on the road & vehicles following them are becoming rare in these forests as it will take some time for the small cubs today to grow up & by then they will be used to people looking at them & click click of sound of camera shutters (Maya tigress at Tadoba actually seems to love that)! And to make this happen we need to be patient & train the drivers as well guides (and tourists) to be patient for allowing the tiger to come & road & get used to the sight of the gypsies as agreed we do keep distance but till a tiger gets habitual for the humans around it will always keep away till it starts understating these vehicles means no harm to it! And this is why the chances of sighting a tiger in the buffers is more as tigers in the buffer zones are more used to the humans around & feel safe & don’t move away from the road by the approaching vehicles!

Lastly, we had been to Pench where we assisted local women for the setup, they have been running at tourist information centres by providing them utensils on the request of Pench Forest Dept (MP) & felt nice to see the wonderful setup here for the tourists at Khawasa buffers. The toilets in Pench forests are immaculately clean & posh as well there are restroom stops in the safari, something Maharashtra safaris needs to look into from the tourist’s angle! Though we have been blessed with some sightings of tigers as well as clicking some wonderful snaps of wildlife on the background of Sal trees, the trip gave me something which I wanted to tick for a long…

Leap of Faith!
It was a rain-washed trip right in the middle of April in Central Indian Forests, yet the forest always sends you back with happy moments! This was one such as since long I wanted to click an image of a spotted deer jumping full length in air & knowing my photographic skills (lol), I knew it is harder than I can imagine as deer are very fast. to spot their movement & from moving gipsy, to lift camera, aim at one deer, adjust all settings for that mode & click, in time, all these needs to happen in few seconds, so in so many trips I tried but failed yet never given up the hope! One way was to use some engineering logic & be observant when gypsy is slow or halted at one place (for tiger alarm calls, what els) & look for the movement of deer around & be ready. In this way also the problem is you dont know which deer will jump & when! yet, this time waiting for checking alarm calls I saw herd of spotted deers moving across a stream & I knew there always are some young ones which want to cross the hurdle in different way as that's one way to test your strength & a bit of showoff also & I was ready when this guy decided to get its feet wet & jump across the stream & I was ready, so, finally did it!...

With that, I said adeus to Pench & Sal walls with a promise to come back soon to listen more stories & to learn more about them!

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Sanjay Deshpande 

smd156812@gmail.com

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about finding a Right Home/ Office in Pune, at YouTube link below & share if liked..

 

https://youtu.be/27j3I3rwGPQ?si=-ODYBxVI2Dl_C345

 

Please do visit my blog links below to read about real estate & home buying! 

https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2024/01/choosing-your-home-along-with-future-of.html

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2023/02/blog-post.html


Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below) 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345

For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below

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Take your issues to Hon PM at link below..

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Think Green, Think Life

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Saturday, April 20, 2024

Balbharati Road, Traffic, Hills, Hon. Supreme Court & Punekars!

 





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“I can't have my employees sitting in traffic when they should be in the office. Spending two-and-half hours in the car is a huge waste of productive time” … Azim Premji

“Traffic congestion is caused by people driving vehicles & not by the vehicles” … Jane Jacobs

“Your few minutes of patience can save hours of traffic jams!” …  Anon

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Three quotes to start a sharing is something I have not done in recent & many people may end their patience in quotes itself is one problem a writer may face but when the subject is as complex as our beloved Pune city’s traffic then even three quotes are not enough is what most readers will agree so be it! And then Pune has been blessed with a unique quality of making an issue out of thin air & here to we have nearly four kilometres long road which cut through one of the most celebrated hills (there are very few left now) of Pune, its range of hills spread across south-western part of Central Pune which are known as Vetal Hill, Hanuman Hill, Law College Road hill, ARAI hill & such. In nutshell these hills are the favourite destination for morning/evening walks of Punekars living in the central part of the city & indeed there has been lots of greenery also here. These hills are surrounded by three major roads (read as busy) on its three sides, on Southern West there is Paud Road, on Northern West there is Senapati Bapat road (SB Road) & parallel to these hills on its bottom side towards city runs Law College Road which connects SB road to Paud Road via short span of Karve road, which is one busiest road in the city! In a way Law college road is the only link right now which connects two major western suburbs of city i.e. Aundh & Kothrud & the commuters on this road can rash over half a million on a busy work day (guess). And then the entire law college road is surrounded by an elite area which carries the tag of costliest area in west of Pune & needless to say residents here are effluent people of the society. So, traffic congestion on law college road has become talk of the town where residents living on both sides of the road have to wait for fifteen minutes & more to even enter in their respective homes or lanes while coming from opposite lanes on the law college road. Crossing this road in morning & evening hours is near impossible & more than that the pollution of lakhs of vehicle’s exhausts cause, is one more problem this traffic creates! At the same time thousands of senior citizens reside along this patch of road & for them noise pollution by honking of the vehicles as well even to cross the road on any hour of time is a big nuisance.

Well, now if you have read up to this part then you will say what’s big deal about it as these are the issues which Pune is experiencing all around so what’s so special about law college road & you are not wrong but then that is Pune! To reduce the traffic on law college road some ten years back local body (PMC) proposed a road from Symbiosis which cuts through the hill range I mentioned above & connects to Paud Road which practically run parallel to law college road but if law college road run from foothills this road run through hilltop & that is the issue! As a road right on top of hill is major threat to biodiversity of these hills is what environmentalists (this term is used a bit liberally in Pune) are calming & obviously political parties joined the war & within the political parties there are parties which support the road & which opposed the roads & finally the battle for future of the road known as Bal Bharati Road went to Hon Supreme Court, this is subject of my sharing!

That way Pune is famous (read as infamous) for challenging everything & every-time, especially when the issue is related with city, may it be Metro route or River Development or Development Plan of the city or BRTS (plz don’t ask for full form just google, as its extinct now) & if in one way its sign of awareness then in other way it’s a mess on the front of planning for the future of the city! I am not taking any side or not saying don’t go to the court as its basic right of every citizen but its failure of planning authority as well keeping all due respect for the judicial system, it never takes into count the delay it makes to deliver the justice & that delay ruins the city! And then again with due respect Court can’t intervein more than certain limits in planning as it’s not planning authority so, somewhere its failure of planning authorities of the city (read as PMC, UD, Town Planning) which repeatedly fails to come up with a solution (read as planning) which will be logical enough to satisfy most segments of the city as even God can’t make happy all its devotees! And if you are logically right with an execution track record of what you have planned in the past then you must have legal authority to go through the project planned & no such oppose must be made as an excuse for the delay & even the Hon Courts also must expedite their rulings to save future of the city, is my subject of sharing!

Coming back to Bal Bharti hill road, the issue (read as was) going on for more than ten years & the work of the road has been stalled for decade & in the meantime numbers of the vehicles on law college road (read as in entire Pune) kept increasing in multiplying mode. Finally, Hon Supreme Court has appointed a committee which is headed by a Sr Forest Officer as well experts to examine & give their report about the actual feasibility of the proposal. The committee has conducted their site visits as well met with both the parties related to the conflict i.e. supports of this road & opposers of the road & will submit its report in due course of time. My point is, agreed, more roads won’t solve traffic problems (environmentalists say) but then why build any roads in the first place! We need roads & we need trees also & we need to protect the biodiversity on the hills also as we want to reduce the traffic congestion on the law college road & for that we must think for a solution which will try to balance all these things & that’s not rocket science!

I have been travelling to the forests for many years & for decades the road from Nagpur to Jabalpur which passes through Pench forest was a nightmare for the commuters for its narrow width & quality of surface. It used to take six to eight hours to complete this journey & widening would have needed cutting of thousands of trees as well as threat to wildlife crossing the highway!  Indeed, trees were needed to cut but plantation has been done along the road, the entire road has been barricaded so that wild animals can come on the road & after regular intervals the road surface has been lifted above the adjoining ground level making passageway to wild animals to cross the road safely. This has been done some three years back & today the travel distance has reduced to mere four hours saving millions of man hours & fuel as well, road kills (death of wild animals under vehicles) has actually reduced, & forest is also growing along the road! If we can find a solution & execute for a forest way outside of urban area, why can’t we come up with a similar solution in city as developed as Pune, is my point of sharing, but we are Punekars & we love discussions than solutions & in that zest we are ruining future of our own city, is what we are ignoring!!

At Bal Bharati Road also we can think of making the road with planting all indigenous (desi) trees along both sides of the road & making underpasses for humans as well wildlife to cross & only after the growth of the trees is seen & verified by the experts then allow use of this road! The entire stretch can be with railing as well green net-shade of 20 ft high (just a suggestion) & no exit to be given on road on some emergency exits which will be gated properly from outside. I am not saying this is a final solution but something of this sort can be worked out is my point. As the environmentalists also should think of two aspects, by such approach no development will be possible for the city & to make tunnels of that sort has limitations of money from the city aspect & the vehicles which are making air polluted on law college roads, those also are residents of this city only! Agreed, trees are important & we are already witnessing the burnt by rampant cutting of trees under the name of development yet stopping tree cutting is also not a right solution.  At the same time, the govt (PMC, UD) should understand that just by building one road the traffic issue may not be solved as strengthening public transport is the only way for which efforts must be taken as just one Metro won’t solve the entire city’s traffic issues! Road based public transport (PMPML) along with infrastructure is missing in the city & right from proper bus-stops to making new routes to increasing numbers of busses many aspects are pending & that’s why when any such new road or flyover is planned people oppose it pointing finger at the lacunas in public transport!  Another aspect is, plantation & survival of new trees as agreed Pune has maximum numbers of gardens yet overall tree cover is getting reduced is a fact & we must try to protect as many trees & for that we can think of keeping distance in between the two lanes of this road & have a tree path in between.

Last but not least, Punekars also need to change their attitude towards transportation as no public transport can ever give you door to door service & you must learn to walk a bit & have patience to wait a bit while using public transport, absence of which is also one of the main causes of ever-increasing numbers of private vehicles! A city is not the outcome of just Gardens or Road network or IT parks or Education Institutes, a city is what its citizens live by! Tomorrow the Supreme Court Committee may approve or reject the Bal Bharati Road proposal but it’s our approach towards the city which only will decide our fate & not some committee, mind it!

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Sanjay Deshpande 

smd156812@gmail.com

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about finding a Right Home/ Office in Pune, at YouTube link below & share if liked...

 

https://youtu.be/27j3I3rwGPQ?si=-ODYBxVI2Dl_C345

 

Please do visit my blog links below to read about real estate & home buying! 

https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2024/01/choosing-your-home-along-with-future-of.html

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2023/02/blog-post.html


Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below) 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345

For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below

www.punecorporation.org

Take your issues to Hon PM at link below...

https://secure.mygov.in/

Think Green, Think Life

www.sanjeevanideve.com / https://junglebelles.in/

 

 

 







Saturday, April 6, 2024

PMC, Revenue, Responsibilities & Pune!

 








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Revenue cures everything in the business world…  Jon Taffer

With great power comes great responsibility… Spiderman… Stan Lee.

Jonathan Peter Taffer is an American entrepreneur and television personality. He is best known for hosting the reality series Bar Rescue on Paramount Network and Face the Truth on CBS & second quote’s writer (read as creator) is the man who changed millions of lives through his creations via Marvel Comics & wrote the all-time greatest quote about power & responsibility! Why I chose the above two quotes is because of one news article about PMC (Pune Municipal Corporation) which praised (rare thing) the organization for its record-breaking revenue it earned in the financial year 23-24. You will say what's special in it as that's the job of the PMC to earn revenue for the city & what it has to do in it, just grant permissions & so but then that's the speciality of Punekars, i.e. to criticize everything, so be it! For those who doesn’t understand the importance of this news & its impact (future) on the city lets first understand how PMC earns its revenue & how things like power & responsibility as well our future are related with this aspect & then will share my views about the revenue from building permissions, PMC is governing public body for Pune city & it earns revenue via various ways & just the way we pay tax to the govt & from that development works for the country are done, the city also works on similar basis. Though things like income tax or such taxes on earning are not there yet the major sources of the city revenue are Property Tax, Premiums as well Development Charges PMC charges for new construction (which are per sft area consumed) & GST collection share (which is receivable from State Govt). And then there are other revenue avenues such as Hoarding/ Banners (advertising) charges, road cutting & other charges as well whatever public buildings or properties are owned by PMC those rental but the major source remains property tax collected from the citizens for the services PMC provides to them & building permissions. And from all this revenue the infrastructure works in the city along with running costs such as salaries & other operating charges for the services PMC provides are taken care of.

Now, if you have understood the revenue model of PMC then let’s see the importance of increase in revenue via building permission charges, its reasons & impact on the future of the city. First of all, increase in revenue from building permission means “Achhe Din” for real estate (at least one side of it) as its possible because of more & more launches of new projects in PMC limit & the faster PMC will approve them the faster its kitty will fill & full marks to PMC administration for that as sanction process needs to be smooth & fast to achieve increase in revenue. I know many people will frown over this & can say “buttering” knowing my bread & butter depends on PMC also, but let me tell you one thing, to give credit to someone (even govt) for a good result is equally necessary if you want to slam the same system for its wrong doing, & take my praise with that mindset! And as I always say, speak up good things first if you want to improve the system & in this case if revenue is a power of PMC, then the responsibility will come in the form of infrastructure needs of the city which this revenue has or will generate! At the same time three to four years back even before Covid hit us the revenue of building permission was on a declining graph, so what has turned the tide? Answer is, UDPCR named “sim sim,” which means allowing more construction on the same piece of land which was a boon for redevelopment as well as the central part of the city which was already saturated! As well, post Covid demand for this city from all across Central India & other parts of the State was the reason for the need to fulfil this real estate space’s demand & which was completed by UDPCR!

Suddenly the central part or already developed part of the city once again came in demand as practically the FSI here got doubled & outcome is every alternate building which has been built in early 70’s to 90’s found themselves in race (rat race) of redevelopment. Because if on one side the buildings which don't have basic amenities like lift or attached toilet to the bedrooms or enough parking spaces are redeveloped for these amenities then many are being redeveloped for additional space the existing flat holders will be getting because of availability of FSI. As well suddenly the bungalows or vacant plots also are getting lured with the kind of remuneration which is too hard to resist & all of these resulted in more development proposals means more FSI consumption means more building permission revenue & thus this year building permission revenue figures for first time are more than property tax revenue, which is a good sign then I personally feel is not a healthy sign (read as warning sign) for the city! Because property tax is a permanent & perennial source of income which must be looked after & strengthened as building permission revenue is like waves of ocean which has high tide & low tide too! If you are confused then do know building permissions revenue is possible only when new real estate proposals are being submitted i.e. new projects are being launched & its one-time revenue, the reason why three to four years back the building permission dept’s revenue got decreased because most of the PMC limits lands has been developed & UDPCR was yet to come in force, naturally there was no scope for new development so less revenue, is the mathematics! But now as many new lands (read as potential) are coming for development the graph of building permission is on the rise but this will be on for next say ten or twenty years which includes lands in newly merged 33 villages (well, that’s another subject of sharing).

This is the entire revenue model thing so, let’s see the responsibilities which will (rather already has come) come along with building permissions’ revenue of which first & foremost is the huge, trust me huge is also insufficient word to describe the need of infrastructure which these new permissions are going to generate in the city! Water is the first need as it is very basic of which the city is already witnessing the burnts & then will come power, roads, parking spaces, drainage lines & many such along with the new permissions which are in a way new homes! And I am not even counting the other needs such as education, public health as fortunately the private sector is there to take care of them yet entertainment & recreation is there & we don’t have enough public spaces is a fact. At the same time all these new homes are not affordable to the common man means nearly sixty percent of the population of this city which is in serving the lucky forty percent who can afford a home in central part of Pune will still need a good liveable (and legal) home, who & how they will be build, is the question which PMC only has to answer as they are the ones giving permissions! And do mind the permission revenue graph will be going to decline after a decade & we don’t have new villages or UDPCR then, so we will have to build the infrastructure right now from this revenue in the right way! And most important make building policies which will have space for trees (and assurance for their survival) along with buildings, as by reducing green cover we are indirectly reducing our future revenue forever!

And to achieve this revenue figures, we will also need right policies from business angle also, as on one side along Metro corridor we are asking for more density of flats & making smaller flats (below 600 sft, fifty percent in TOD zone) but that’s making building planning miserable (read as impossible) as well there are not takes for such flats as in central area rates are already beyond capacity of normal families, instead open up the planning restrictions, let it be the way one wants to build as that’s possible only by the selling capacity of the builder & city will benefit in that way more on revenue as well infra front! At the same time make more TDR available & keep paid FSI options available & don’t make compulsory which should be used & in what proportion as all around the world markets are opening & that's the only way of survival, look what happened in China & learn! If we want the city to keep on high-tide of the revenue then we must make positive changes to sustain that high-tide & prepare ourselves for the low-tide which is the course of nature! And we will have to do that fast because the responsibilities come faster than the revenue; mind it, adios with this warning!

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Sanjay Deshpande 

smd156812@gmail.com

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about finding a Right Home/ Office in Pune, at YouTube link below & share if liked...

 

https://youtu.be/27j3I3rwGPQ?si=-ODYBxVI2Dl_C345

 

Please do visit my blog links below to read about real estate & home buying! 

https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2024/01/choosing-your-home-along-with-future-of.html

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2023/02/blog-post.html


Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below) 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345

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