परंपरा, प्रतिष्ठा, अनुशासन; Union Budget 2026

 

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“Most people aren’t broken because of income—they’re broke because of ignorance.”

― Joseph C. Kunz Jr

“Find your values, align your vision, charge your passion, connect with your purpose & then make a Budget.”

― Sabrina M J Constantin

“My understanding about the Budget is, it’s about not how much I will earn but about how much I can spend”__ Me

 

Keeping due respect to financial wizards like Joseph Cruz & Sabrina Constantine, whose words rescued me to start the sharing about the budget (Union Budget or country’s budget), a subject which makes me sick, nervous (Just the Maths used to make me in my engg days)! Yet, budget is something which is the backbone of my work systems & long back when I started as a fresh trainee engineer, I have learned the importance of the term budget! Though the sharing is about country’s budget which is as complex as “Climate Change” yet everybody can have his or her own say about it & being a businessman by myself I too have mine, & when your journalist friend asks you to pen down your thoughts about it, I did dig a bit in the subject & I could actually make a quote about it, in my own words too, lol! Agreed, a budget is a complex thing, especially for an engineer who could barely read his own company’s balance sheet but then that’s the bitter fact about financial literacy of this country’s education system as managing money in the right way is the last thing they taught you in normal education! All our education is so much focused on only to earn money but how to utilize or manage that money nobody teaches you & here is where budget’s importance comes in the picture, is my main reason for sharing!

Ohk, coming to understanding of the budget which is like a yearly ritual of our country & its impact on the share market which often is emotional more & logical less! Keeping in tune with this tradition, on budget day the share market crashed by nearly 2000 pints (plz google for meaning) but in the next three days it again bounced back to level from where it crashed, & I think this means it has nothing to do with the budget, logic, right? When its real estate, I wonder why just Finance Minister, not even our local bodies give any damn to our industry, so where it’s a Development Plan or TDR policy, if the govt is not taking in to consideration the people in business (read as builders) how can you expect the same govt will take builder’s consultation in thing like budget! And the outcome is that this year’s budget directly doesn’t give anything to real estate, a plain & simple outcome by a common engineer builder like me! Yet I tried to decode some aspects of it for other fellow builders so we can at least raise our voice (whom I am fooling, anyways)!

 

Coming to my understanding (read as take away) of Budget 26, I remembered the famous dialogue from the Bachchan-SRK starrer Mohabbatein & in the movie SRK used to mock it as a strong building standing on a hollow foundation!! Same way for real estate or say housing, this budget talks big but stands on thin air. Here, the 3 pillars i.e. Parampara, Pratishtha, Anushasan, are replaced by 3 Kartawys i.e. Building Capacity of People, Fulfilling People's Aspirations & Subka Saath Subka Vikas concept! Great, but like in the another Bollywood hit Sholay, when Dharampaaji climbs on overhead water tank and shouts "good bye gaonwalo" on which one villager explains another villager, meaning of good bye saying, "jub angrej loag kahi jate hai tub wo goodbye bolte hai", on this the other villager asks, "par ye angrej loag jate kaha hai?", on that the first villager turns his face away for having no answer! Same way, my question is, who & where are these people, who supposedly focus on Hon FM in the budget 26!! Definitely, they are not from real estate for sure as in the provisions of lakhs of crores of rupees for AI, Production, Railways, Tourism, Public Health, Creative Content, Défense, Education & all such fronts, FM madam seems has forgotten all this employment as well existing people will need homes & has forgotten that there is an industry which makes these homes!! Many will say, direct or indirect ultimately its real estate which will get benefit as need for space will increase & half of that sentence is true but that's lifetimes truth as space will always be in demand but how those spaces are going to be made or created i.e. Real estate, what about it??

About some other provisions, individual tax limits are always an important aspect for buying home for salaried urban People & with no major elections ahead in Central India (read as Maharashtra) no concrete thing is there for this class which is client of real estate, so not even indirect benefit is there for real estate or housing!! Infrastructure provision is another weak link, as you will connect Pune Mumbai but what about traffic, water, drainage in these cities as well public transport within & outward to these cities?? Rare minerals, NRI investment limits, Smart Universities & Amrit Yojana for small towns infra, well, high time we must acknowledge Metro cities like Pune, Bengaluru as separate industries in itself & Growth Engines for which no direct provisions are made! Then let’s take in to account commuting between major cities which indeed is need for residents of these cities but just making high speed trains won’t achieve anything as take example of Pune -Nagpur route, there are eight railways on this route & all are full almost throughout the year, means we need to study the commuting volume & then increase the intensity (more rails) on the routes which has never happened, making people dependant of private vehicles of spend more for air travel! Rather we need new tracks, more trains, get over the age-old concept of one Up & one Down rail track system as why can’t we have four laned railway tracks, as it will save land acquisition also & will help in increasing the carrying capacity of the railways. But for such thoughts you need to take into account what is actually pinching to the people in the industry as we are year, nose, eyes of end users, just take us in confidence while making a budget, is my appeal to Hon FM!

 

As one main aspect of the budget as per FM madam is, EoD i.e. Ease of Doing Business but that's one of the vaguest (deceptive) tag lines, as what are concrete provisions for making that happen & for real estate, nothing on that! Rather on the very next day of Budget announcement Pune Municipal Corporation issued a circular saying hereafter to demolish existing buildings for development there will be a NOC to be obtained from PMC, means one more hurdle, so, where is Ease of Doing Business, is my question to Hon FM! And such there are hundreds of speed breakers, hurdles, or obstacles everywhere, need of obtaining a NA certificate even when your project is in a residential zone & weirdest is obtaining an NOC of mining for excavation of building foundations, just great! Joke is, Hon FM mentions Ease of Doing business but why can’t she order or make direct provisions which will make that ease thing happen, is another question to her!  Real estate needs policies, fund provision, priority finance, funding for purchasing land which is raw material, & GST reduction if you want to make Homes affordable, nothing on it!! And here the main problem is neither Hon FM nor any govt official (read as rulers) feel the need of taking the opinion of businessmen in account for this Budget thingy as they think they know it all & that’s our country’s biggest problem, especially for real estate! Take a simple example of construction material or infra items, with high rise buildings is a fact, we need a special type of shuttering made of Aluminium called as My One & which is made by a Korean company. This we all know from decades but nothing has been done to manufacture this shuttering material in our country as giving tax exemptions to the same, which will actually make construction cheaper & help in reducing home prices! There are thousands of such suggestions out of which 18% GST on labour contracts is also one weird thing as construction industry supports probably the maximum numbers of lower classes (financially) of the society & burdening this class with 18% GST is seriously wrong & that directly adds to the cost of home making, rather now a days even profit margins also are not that high in contracting; in nutshell, in any civil labour contract, the govt earns more than the contractor, if my understanding is wrong then I am sorry but my engineering logic says so!

Here one will say the govt earns through these taxes & use that money for infrastructure, but again speaking about real estate, Hon FM, please check the conditions local bodies put on the developer for any project! As right from providing water or drainage or road like basic facilities, for which again the local body (read as govt) charges to the builder, an undertaking is taken from the builder that all these will be provided by the builder only to the occupants! Wow, just wow, as if you call this as Ease of Doing Business then what it will be in your directory Normal Business, I just can’t imagine! And then again my basic question, about providing infra to the cities, why the budget doesn’t make it mandatory to the civic bodies to keep record & mandate for utilizing funds which has been allotted to them via budget & maintain transparency in the same, as if that money if for the citizens 9read as businessmen too) then we must be kept in loop as all these development are directly related to fate of real estate in respective region or city, right? As well why the Finance ministry doesn’t put local bodies under their scanner or have direct control on them when they allocate crores of budget money to these bodies as leave apart actual execution of infra projects the DPs’ of cities, towns, regions kept lingering for years & add to that weirdest policies related to ownership documents, revenue record lacunas, buying a land & developing it becomes game only for moneyed ones or the ones with muscle power & this is the reason of failure of making affordable homes for the needy ones which is main reason for illegal construction! All this can be stopped with just a little bit of openness of accepting suggestions from some sane minds in real estate which never happens & that’s why budget after budget real estate gets more disappointed only, is a fact! The way the govt keeps tab on wrong doings via ED, DRI & CBI, same way high time a special task force State wise to be created for monitoring progress of infra projects especially in cities which are being done under Central Govt funding as then only such budget provisions will help real estate!

 

And the biggest hurdle for a right (I am not saying good) budget for real estate is the misconception that real estate is like a gold mine & everybody always earns a lot more eventually! It was right a few years back but even Golden Egg laying hen also dries up if you cut her down (plz google for the phrase & its meaning) which has happened with real estate. Agreed a land is probably the only commodity which doesn’t have expiry date or depreciation concept but what about the person who has holding that land & trying to develop it, he can surely go bankrupt, right? And if you see today’s newspapers, most of their central pages are full with acquisition or auction notices of real estate assets by the banks as well as financial institutions, that’s the real indicator (read as mirror) of our economy which is directly related with budget! Last but least, about finance to the real estate industry, there are special loan rates for housing finance but no such for the builder is the biggest joke regarding policies of FM towards real estate & yet we expect the homes to become affordable, just wow! To add there are policies like no GST for ready possession homes means to make people wait till the project gets completed making it costlier with the interest cost! I wonder if a layman like me can understand or see these hurdles in real estate, why can’t Hon FM & her team see it, is all I can say! If we really want to make homes affordable to all then the way hon FM has made provision to create a committee for improvements in banking, please make one such committee under herself or Hon PM for real estate or else every day millions of people sleep in homes which they don’t own but to wish to own someday, will remain a dram only for them!

To conclude about Union Budget 2026 from real estate’s view, I think we should change name of "Real" Estate to "Subka Real Estate” as then only we can have some hope for the real estate going by the tag line, i.e. “Subka" Sath "Subka" Vikas (I know it’s a PJ but that’s all I can think for now)..!!

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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/2025/12/pune-real-estate-in-2026.html

https://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2024/12/2025.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

Think Green, Think Life

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

Cycle Race & City which was Capital of Cycles!

 

                                                      

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“Without culture, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.”― Albert Camus

“You know, bicycling isn't just a matter of balance," I said. "It's a matter of faith. You can keep upright only by moving forward. You have to have your eyes on the goal, not the ground.”― Susan Vreeland

“Any sports, even that of paddling, is in a way a race with your own self, to do better”-- Me

Well, the quotes by Camus & Vreeland may confuse you as to what's the connection of cycling & culture or society but then I am glad to get opportunity to write about both because if sport is my passion, then culture/ society is directly related to my bread & butter i.e. real estate! So, thanks to Grand Cycle Race (I should mention Bajaj but I am not an influencer not Mr Bajaj is going to pay me for mentioning their name so be it, lol) which was conducted recently in our beloved Pune city or say region & my sharing is not to describe the cycle racing but its impact or say connection with city at large! But before that “Dilese” congratulations to Mr.Collector as administrative head of district & Municipal as well Police Commissioners of Pune & Pimpri Chinchwad & Superintendent of District Police & entire ground staff of these organizations! This will sound like a builder speaking from political dais where every name & mention of credit given to that name matters more than the speech of the speaker but let it be! Why I mentioned these names is not because they matter for my business (they do btw) but what they all must have gone through not just the last week which saw 400 plus kilometers of cycle race through Pune region but even nearly a month before that which saw election of both city’s civic elections also! And the pressure of work can be imagined only by those who have seen all these organizations (read as depts) closely & I am one such that’s why!

Ohk, the formalities of niceties are done & let’s come to our subject which is the cycle race & city’s culture as the Gen Z may not be even knowing that few decades back this city was called as “Cyakalinche Shahar” (Bicycle City) in the entire country & my genre may be last of it, which has witnessed it in reality & not AI! When I got down at Pune Railway Station in the late 80”s for my engineering education, all I was carrying, a bag, some books, a mattress & a cycle. Thirty-five years down the line the city is now called Two-wheeler’s city & cycles are only for upper few that too for exercise & not as means of commuting. Even the poorest segment of society doesn’t look at this most economical means of commuting i.e. cycle, as effective or say useful & on such background when a cycle race was arranged right on the working days that too after the hustle of elections just over, the event has got mixed reactions from the entire city & which is my subject of sharing! The moment this race was declared as usual (that’s synonymous with Pune now) controversy started, right from who is conducting this race & for whose benefit to why suddenly this love for cycling, all this under whose instructions & why on working days & social media was abuzz with these posts, even newspapers too! What I came to understand, the major lead was taken by Hon Collector & under his leadership, other depts followed. This means the driving force was or is none other than the State govt because Collector represents govt, right? And may be because of the PMC/PCMC elections the political figures as well rulers kept distance from the event as it could be considered as breach of Code of Conduct. This in itself was a boon (by me) as the entire cycle race event was in total control of administration without any intervention for individual or party benefit & that’s one reason for the success of the event!

Before this event no such type of race was ever conducted in the Pune region (at least I am not aware of) rather I don’t remember reading about such anywhere in the country. In my college days there used to be the famous Mumbai _Pune cycle race which was a yearly event but that was mostly out of city limits & slowly as the traffic increased & expressway came into existence the fame & popularity of this race faded away & today not many even know such a race of cycling ever existed! On this background to make a fully dedicated cycling race an event & where international players are involved & to make it pass through our city roads & in rural parts, well it indeed was a challenge which administration took on & full marks to them for the same. Because their riders are not our normal leisure or work-related paddlers & speed of cycling can be nearly 60km/ hour & at such speed even a small pebble in the path or an uneven surface of road can cause serious accidents. Means for the track of nearly 400 plus kilometers you will have to assure a road surface which will stand till end of this race & this is not overnight job (which usually our local bodies are used to get done) just to face-lift for any Big Leader’s visit to the city, but we have to make roads on which international cyclers are supposed to race & one mistake means damage of country’s name on world map, now you will understand the tough part of conducting the race. Silently the entire system was working overnight & meticulously the entire road from where the racers were to pass was worked on & actual as they say in Marathi, “aarasha sarkhe raste” (mirror like surfaced roads) were prepared & outcome is not a single mishap in the entire race because of quality of the road, that’s success!

If this was achievement for the engineering team then the bigger challenge awaited for Police or say enforcement team as for nearly four days all these roads needed to remain empty to cyclists to pass from them freely & in a country ( read as City) where people don’t even bother red signals & put their as well others’ lives at risk, you can imagine the impossibility of the job that the race should be conducted without any pedestrian or two where or stray animal entering suddenly in the path of racers! And on top of that the race was scheduled on the working days that too after elections, so the roads were bound to get crowded like hell & Punekars are over sensitive about traffic & water! Here, the police did a sensible thing (well, many won’t like it) which was. To close the major roads from morning 10 am to evening 6 pm on the day of the race in the particular patch of that day’s route! This decision wasn’t easy as there was a heavy public cry they had to face & on top of it the police barricaded the entire such stretch to avoid crossing on these roads which only fuelled the frustration of the public! I will come to the negative aspect of this action later but trust me, knowing the way Punekars drive or behave on the streets, what other solution could you have thought, had you been put in charge of controlling the safety aspect of the race? As the way we drive or behave even when traffic signals are on, imagine what we would have done with getting mixed with the cyclists of the race, it would have been chaos & that's why the road closers'!

And lastly the beautification via flower pots & signages & murals along the roads & in chowks, well if you see those images, you will feel you are in some city of Europe, such was the work done! No wonder many of the foreign players who have participated in the race were thrilled & happy with the arrangement as well the way the crowd greeted them during the entire race. As most of them had never been to India & unlike other sports which are played in some single confined venue, here the players had to travel across the entire segment of the city as well country side & what they saw, what they felt wasn’t as bad as they must have heard about our so-called poor country, this is the real success of the race, is what I feel! At the same time, this race made people realize once again the Golden Days of this city of paddling as well the way people celebrated the passing of cyclists from their locality shows our culture. In a way this can be “Savaii Gandharva” (plz google) of cycling adding one more feather in the cap of the cultural capital of the State! As these types of events are important for the city at large not just for name & fame of the city but for the society to realize fun & importance of the fitness which comes through such games as well as the bonding, because a sport doesn’t recognize any man-made boundaries such as caste, religion, gender, or profession but treats every player as equal!

Now, coming to flip side of the race (actually there isn’t any) as why people (read as Janata) get frustrated or angry about such events is, it’s not they don’t love sport or want their city name to be put on the world map but why it needs a race to make our roads better as well the infrastructure, is the point which matters most! If the administration can make roads of such length in good & perfect condition as well which can manage the traffic then why doesn't it do it on an everyday basis where people get stuck for hours in the traffic on the very same roads! One major aspect about reduction in numbers of cycles on normal days is, road safety as a cycle doesn’t provide much safety in case of road accident which are increasing by day due to reckless driving of Pune people which is one more aspect the govt system must look after! Because, no two minds about benefits of using a cycle for regular use but what about mine or my kid’s safety while using a cycle on the city roads, is the question citizens ask, which the system must answer by action & not mere words!  Same is about beautification, the beautiful flower-pots which were present during race time, were removed from the roads & chowks, immediately after the race & again these spaces will be covered by illegal parking or banners or street vendors, why is this so? Why can’t we have the same beautiful road side views yearlong & why it's only for the duration of the race (Same happened in G 30 or 32 summit) & not on other times is what people want to know! At the same time even for the race the conditions of public toilets along the entire track were pathetic (sorry but fact) & this is something we must do needfully together as public toilets on the roads are like mirrors of the city, do I need to elaborate more! Here, we the citizens are equally responsible as when it comes to honouring traffic rules, we ourselves never do it on our own & about civic sense or owning the public spaces, well, lesser we speak is better! For last eight years, we maintain a public toilet at Nal Stop, Karve road & every month even the bulbs, not just flower pots, get stolen from there, such is our attitude towards the public property, so we can’t blame only the administration, is equally true! 

To conclude, all I will say is, the Grand Cycle race is over & we (read as entire system & society) have enough time till the next race to retrospect about our attitude towards our city & not just some sports as that will only decide whether we have really benefited (read as learned) from such race or its just one more showpiece event for the city; 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/2025/12/pune-real-estate-in-2026.html

https://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2024/12/2025.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

Think Green, Think Life

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

High Rise Buildings & Fate of Pune!

                                                     

                                                                                                   

                                                          

                                             

                                                           

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“There is no logic that can be superimposed on the city; people make it, and it is to them, not buildings, that we must fit our plans.”
― Jane Jacobs

How can you measure progress if you don't know what it costs and who has paid for it? How can the "market" put a price on things such as - homes, electricity, running water - when it doesn't take into account the REAL price we have paid for their production?”
― Arundhati Roy

A city is just like a big home where everybody has some space of his or her own, even the trees & yet they all live together like a big family caring for each other, that’s how I will define a city… Me

Well, first & foremost thanks to Nisarga Sewak (An NGO) for making me write something so close to my heart that I avoid writing about it or even share my views about it! As it's said you should not allow your emotions to rule your decisions especially when they run diagonally opposite to each other! Well, you can even call me a hypocrite but then entire country (read as politics) is being ruled by hypocrisy & society deserves the rulers the way society is & with due respect entire society is hypocrite when it comes to an individual, especially when the subjects are like environment, conservation, civic sense or obeying basic traffic rules, we all behave as per convenience is a fact! If you are wondering where this is going or I am justifying my hypocrisy then I am not as things are the way they are i.e. my business is building buildings (builder) & I strongly feel we are ruining our surroundings by our buildings! Now you understand the hypocrite aspect but that doesn’t stop me building buildings & doesn’t stop me thinking about what I think about them, yet what I do is I try to strike a balance between both. Because we need buildings & we need to protect the environment too & both things won't ever happen together is a fact (disclaimer no.1)! Here is where the aspect or say attitude, how we will build our buildings come in the picture & this is the reason I am thankful to Mrs Vinaya Ghate of Nature… who requested me that can I write about high rise buildings in Pune (read as vertical growth) & their impact on the city (I presume that’s what she wanted)!

Well, I am not a town planner but executioner of planning by academics i.e. a civil engineer but I am lucky to have exposure of some great architects such a Mr B V Doshi who has understood meaning of architecture & I am a wild lifer, not just photographer, so I have understood (a little bit) about other species than humans & nature, which are actual sufferer of our so-called growth! Coming to the subject, when I started my career as site engg, then I was thrilled to be part of the team which built the first five (yes 5) storeyed buildings as till then the height limit in Pune was four storeys! And then I also was part of the team which built the first set of eleven storey buildings, which was a new high then & today I am building a twenty-five storeyed building also, as well I have been part of some such in Mumbai too! Joke is, the first change in height limit for four storeys to five, took nearly thirty years while the other change of rules took nearly fifteen years (if I am remembering correctly) but today you are allowed to build even fifty storeyed buildings also & suddenly ten or eleven floors looks like a low-rise building! And fact is, as per fire norms even a building above just seven storeys i.e. twenty-four meters is also considered as high-rise & needed provisions accordingly; one more joke of our urban planning!

Coming back to the impact of high rise or tall buildings on the city but before that I will ask another question, do we really need them in the first place & my answer is both, Yes & No! And this is not a political answer as tall buildings are definitely important for the infrastructure aspect of the city & are the only solution when space is an issue (read as land) but that is the case of cities like Mumbai or Hongkong or Singapore where land is limited. In Pune we have enough land & somewhere our land use policy has failed miserably (which is the case of the entire State) & the outcome is we don’t have a linear or defined sky line nor we have a proper infrastructure of basic necessities of life such as water, electricity & drainage! Add to that traffic & biodiversity & that’s the reason for our today’s high air pollution levels to water shortage to everything & height of building is not reason for that but our inability to define where to use what height & how, is the main reason behind all the problems! As I said at the start, we need homes & homes need allied services including schools to banks to hospitals & many such & all these buildings are interconnected with each other by network of commuting which means roads & now Metro too! At the same time all these buildings need water, drainage lines, power lines as well data cables so those things also need space & yes vehicles! So, gist is, everything related to the buildings need space & taller the building then more are the occupants & more space for services & its occupants is simple maths!

Now, look at the central part of Pune, which we can consider old limits of PMC when the approximate area was hardly 180 sq kms, which got developed mostly during late 70’s, till 90’s. Then the PMC boundary got extended by merging of 11 villages & the development started spreading in these suburbs (Baodhan, Katraj, Baner) & in recent 34 more villages got merged in PMC making its total area touching to 500 sq kms & is largest Municipal Corporation in State! The problem is DP (development plan) of these extended areas is in lingo (plz google) & joke is we have FSI/ TDR rules in place but not land use! This is the reason, land available for development is less, naturally people have to use the available land for development to the fullest potential means, high-rise buildings! The impact is direct, the roads in central Pune or say developed Pune has been planned according to the buildings’ density at that time & so is applicable for all the basic infrastructure & today where there are 10 apartments we are allowed to build 30 to 40 apartments while the land of this building & entire services are the same! This is the sole reason for traffic (as well drainage & rainwater drains too) congestion in the central part or say developed part of the city which is the outcome of tall buildings policies. And then, we have to cut down big trees which were very much there in all the central city, to accommodate the new tall buildings as well our cars & services & that has reduced the green cover of the city & its direct impact is, increased air pollution as we don’t have trees to absorb our pollution!

If this reduced tree cover is the cause of worrying for the humans about air quality then it's the biggest enemy for biodiversity in the city as tell me when you have last seen a butterfly dancing along the roadside plant’s flowers as there is no place for plants along the roads so no flowers so no butterflies! And this is applicable to many other species for e.g. common sparrow, all such birds have moved out of the city because of loss of habitat & food which again is the outcome of our tall buildings taking every space of every species! Now, you will say there is tree policy & every new building is needed to plant more trees (1 big tree per 800 sft), ok then show me such big trees planted in last ten years & biodiversity they have protected, answer is nil!  Because if you cut down today a big tree, say Neem or Jamun then it will break life cycle of hundreds of species from ants to squirrels & where they will go till the new planted trees grow up, the answer is they won’t go anywhere, they will die as they don’t have Metro or private cars or PMPML to carry them to other destination! Here, many will say what’s this joke, shall we stop building buildings for some butterflies or squirrels, answer is No, we don’t have to stop building tall buildings but we have to make the rules where the tall buildings won’t make other species disburse from their homes as well wont choke the roads or the services because of them! And it's not just air or roads or butterflies which are getting troubled by our policies regarding the tall buildings but the groundwater also has not escaped due to them! As tall buildings need parking & due to fire norms height becomes an issue too, we need to dig deep in the ground for accommodating our car park which kills the ground water storage capacity of earth! This again damages the vegetation (trees) on the surface as the roots need to go deeper in search of water & those trees which roots can’t do that they die or fall down! Last but least, cost of construction of high-rise buildings; as on one side govt keeps on blaming builders for high prices of homes & push for affordable buildings & on the other side neither makes the land available at cheap price, as well makes the policies which indirectly are compelling builders to build high rise buildings increasing construction cost, making the finish product i.e. homes, costlier!

And this needs a little bit logical planning & its strict execution in the framed time span, here our system (read as govt as well society) takes years in making development plans & then in one night they (DP) get cancelled & if at all they get through the implementation takes decades but the growth doesn’t stop because a city is like a baby, which once taken birth is bound to grow! It's up to us how we let this growth happen, this is where the aspect of handling tall buildings comes in the picture! Allow the tall buildings only on the lands where we can build them in such a way that there won’t be impact on the services as well surrounding environment & where they are really needed! I repeat I am not the final authority to comment on the subject as vast as tall buildings or urban planning but I just put forward the scene which is right in-front of our eyes. The city is growing due to many factors & most people will say, if all above negative points are there then how the city is still growing; well, the other side of this argument is, if a child is gaining weight, then that also is one sign of growth but only aan expert doctor can teel whether the child is healthy or obese, 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/2025/12/pune-real-estate-in-2026.html

https://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2024/12/2025.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

Think Green, Think Life

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