Vision of Life; by Sanjay: Green-Belts, Rivers & Understading Sustainable Development!

“I came to realise how important it is to maintain a distinction between business and policy. If businessmen start making policy, we invite politicians to start making business. By instead empowering politicians with the right information to make balanced decisions, we create more forceful advocates for the results of our collaboration.”
… Lucy Jones.

Lucile M. Jones is a seismologist and public voice for earthquake science and earthquake safety in California & is adviser to many real estate firms, infra projects for seismic aspects of the business development! No wonder. She can so clearly differentiate between business & politics & their respective roles in making policies, I wish there should have been many such Lucy Jones here, especially in Pune, our lives would have been a lot easier (only if we have listened to such advice). Please ignore the in-bracket sarcasm as that’s inherent part (of-late) of me, courtesy policies & chaos on the front of the city & when the subject is town planning or land use or environment or business then more of it! Needless to say, the reason of using Lusy’s above mentioned quote (and sarcasm) is recent row (read as hohallah) over so-called illegal structures in the green belt along the river side (shall we still call that part of land a river, again sarcasm) & blue-line red -line debate of the rivers Mula-Mutha which flows right from the Pune city at entire length of the city. Here many Punekars will ask are they rivers any more or by what definition we can call them rivers but unfortunately there are those Punekars also which still considers them as rivers & fight for its protection, I mean whatever has remained of the two rivers. And there are far more Punekars who doesn’t understand a bit about rivers, blue line, red line, green belt but has their opinion on all of these (well, that’s what makes you a Punekar) & problem is most of the times media & even Mai Bapp govt also is part of this category of Punekars, is my main cause of frustration which I use for sharing!

If the introduction is enough then let me tell you the green belt is a land portion of the shore of river, Mutha in this case which runs parallel to the river bed & as per DP, i.e., development plan of the city is supposed to be used to maintain biodiversity around the rivers or river. Let me explain this concept first, for ages the rivers when they uses to carry fresh water & land was not as costly or sought after the way it is today then along the river beds there was ample of biodiversity in the form of vegetation which included many types of trees, shrub, grass which was hope to many species of birds, insects, rodents & which was in a way boon for the life in the river water thus making this entire portion of land along with river water a life cycle! And to protect this life cycle some great minds (read as town planners) thought that if they make such lands as green belts with no development allowed here, not even agriculture, then such biodiversity will remain safe! But they haven’t thought about our greed & population & its needs which are swallowing every piece of land especially in & around cities like Pune which are urban growth centres. And leave apart green belts we have even shrunk the rivers itself & killed them by the pollution but the policies made for the lands under green belts remained same, defeating the very purpose for which they have been marked as no-development zones!

Same this happened with hills in & around Pune which are now become slum centres instead of green cover but fortunately the green belt in news which is right in the heart of Pune connecting Rajaram Bridge to Mhatre bridge has survived because the land belongs to private owners & somehow, they thought of putting in to uses such as marriages, social gatherings even parking pots & eating joints. Joke is the local governing body kept on changing policies for the green belts as per its convenience, never giving a thought about practicability of these policies! At first there was no development of any sort allowed in the green belt, just like core areas of tiger projects, keep it as it is! Then only for the plots more than 1 acre i.e. 40,000 sft some 4% structures were allowed such as cafeteria, gym etc. As well some cattle sheds or goat farming (right in the centre of in Pune, lol) were allowed. At the same time nothing was allowed for plots of lesser areas than 40,000sft, only for God knows why so! Later in the revised DP of 2011, some 10% structure of the land area was allowed with uses such as eateries, swimming pools, recreation activities etc. Again why 10% has no logic, maybe thinking of 10% construction is allowed in the open spaces of lay-outs of plans of bigger plots. But then that was for lay-out of residential plots which are owned by a single person or group of persons while these are solely owned lands by the individuals, this fact our planners either forgot or ignored! And biggest blow for the land owners in the green belt came when in the so-called UDPCR (its same building control rules for entire Maharashtra State, barring few blue eyed regions) was drafted then in that the planners did allowed many uses in these green belts keeping in tune to environment but they forgot to mention the area allowed to construct for these uses & result is now even the 10% construction area facility was taken away & at present situation is, not a single sq ft construction is allowed in these green belts whatever size of the plot may be! On the top of it, PMC charges property tax at commercial rate even to vacant land to the lands in these green belts & takes away area for making roads without giving any compensation or TDR when the high-court has given verdict to give TDR as per regular rules for the lands in the green belts! Now tell me how many Punekars would have accepted such policies towards their hard-earned land as the only fault of the land owners here is their land was along the river which no longer is a river now, is a bitter fact!

Despite all such hurdles, fortunately the land owners in the green belt here haven’t succumbed to the temptation (read as greed) of making easy money & has maintained the greenery to the best of possible way, this I can vouch as a resident of this locality who lives right across the road. Every morning I wake up & look from my balcony which overlooks the greenest patch in the entire area where many age-old trees are still surviving which are homes to hundreds of birds & music is on every morning of their chirping! This is possible even with all the restrictions the uses of green belt lands have as agreed by DC rules no construction is allowed here (for now) but there are few old sanctions as well the green belt holders use the land for marriage ceremonies by erecting temporary mandap, a thing which nis common & not illegal in entire India but that also is marked as illegal & demolishing action is taken by PMC which I think is injustice with the greenbelt land holders! I am not saying don’t protect the green belt’s biodiversity rather I am the last one who will say so as I am a direct beneficiary of this biodiversity but we must strike a balance by which this greenery will be maintained as well the land holders of the green belts also will not be at total loss! And the only logical, sustainable, practical, viable solution is, to allow some uses as well structures in these green belts which will not harm the greenery here rather increase it as well there should not be any nuisance of such activities to the neighbourhood such as DJ, Firecrackers or Loudspeakers but it will make able to the landlords of the greenbelts to earn enough so as they won’t have to turn these green belts in to slums which has been happening all around this city which was once green!

And then there is another row over the red line & blue lines which are indicative lines of flood levels in last hundred & thirty years respectively & again keeping due respect to river water & its flow, if we can allow Metro rail right form the river bed then why can’t we come up with some solution to allow some uses, just temporary mandaps in the blue line when it’s not flooding. Agreed you don’t allow to build walls or something which will become an obstruction to the water flow inside the blue lines but what tomorrow there will be illegal hutments inside blue line, what are we going to do with it like we are doing nothing in other such hutments along the river in this city only, is I wanted to ask (read as appeal) the Hon Green Tribunal & authorities! And then these uses are needed by the entire society (read as citizens) also as or elsewhere in the city you have places where thousand plus people can gather for marriage or musical concerts, is also a fact we should look at! As with this very same logic tourism is allowed even in the core areas of the project tigers & resorts are allowed in the buffers of these forests as if we take care of the locals around these forests then only, we can make the wildlife survive, same logic is applicable if we want to conserve the green belts!

I know, reading this sharing many will tag me “two-faced” as on one side I call myself as wildlife or green thinker & on other side I am saying allow structures or make green-belt lands usable but unless you have understood true meaning of balanced growth or the word sustainable you will never achieve it by making just one-way policies for the environment at large or else there will be laws, rules & policies but only on the paper; mind it, adios with this statutory warning!

Sanjay Deshpande

smd156812@gmail.com

Sanjeevani Dev.

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