Vision of Life; by Sanjay

Friday, January 1, 2016

New Year's Resolution of a Builder!

"If you asked me for my New Year Resolution, it would be to find out who I am"…Cyril Cusack.

Cyril James Cusack was an Irish actor, who appeared in numerous films and television productions in a career lasting more than 70 years. And he was respected for his wisdom too which isn’t a rare characteristic especially in western cinemas where many actors are good readers as well highly educated! Cusack’s above quote is example of his thinking depth & perfect for the present real estate developers while welcoming to the New Year. The passing year must have be blackest out of the last many for the real estate as sales dropping to new low every day & the terms “appreciation” or “returns” seems coming from another planet. At the same time govt kept hitting the industry (if we can call it as industry) below & above the belt, with announcing every day new policy & tax burdens, taking out whatever life was left in the industry! So when it comes to face the approaching New Year, at which most of the eyes in the real estate are looking expectantly for “Achhe Din”, what a builder should resolve is what I was thinking on! But before that it’s important to know the scene over past year regarding real estate.

Here many will say wasn’t this correction required, as so many years it was “builder raj” on the real estate industry & didn’t these builders used the same govt system for their benefit & enjoyed on appreciation of the land rates which kept on getting high every year taking the home out of not just pocket but out of imagination for the common man? To some extent yes but like the famous Hindi song from Namakhalal (A Bachaan movie in 90s), “Shikari khud yaha shikar ho gaya”, type situation has finally happened with the builders. While taking the govt system at ride, builders forget that govt is one of most cruel entity as it only understands its own survival. And it’s the builders who have shown the govt, the huge profits in real estate so till the land rates factor was there real estate industry never minded the blood sucking by this system as new blood was getting pumped up in the form of the enormous profits by ever rising land rates. But the moment land rates stopped increasing then the industry started realizing the pain as well energy loss by this blood sucking mechanism but till then it was too late! Now govt knows only one thing; that there is immense revenue in real estate & it doesn’t care whether real estate survives or not but it wants its share of the revenue out of the industry. May it be TDR policy or surcharge or ses or premiums on every sq ft or increase in ready reckoner rates, govt is keen on squeezing real estate every deal & feel its own pockets first, is a fact!

On other side the one latest survey by a reliable source reveled that only in Pune nearly one lac flats are unsold & this covers both ready possession & in making flats. The same survey further stated that the appreciation or rise in the home rate was mere 0.69% in 2015 which at many places has even gone down also. Actually in real estate the rates are not increasing is in a way reduction in rates itself as land has been purchased in most cases upfront i.e. all payment has to be cleared before you start the project. So if the land rates don’t increase so your investment is without any returns which mean loss! And to add on the clients & investors both are keeping away from the real estate; clients keeping away as the end product isn’t in their budget & investors because they see no returns at least assured ones! Many buyers who have buying power believe that the rates will decrease further so they are holding back the buying decision. Here again the builders were responsible as they keep building the homes not for the end users but for getting the prices doubled & keeping happy the investors who played lead role in making the homes costly. Every Tom Dick & Harry joining real estate was speaking only one language, “kitne dinome double hoga?” means, in how many days my investment will get doubled? This was going to end some day as no movie can be a hit on basis of black marketers; you need genuine movie watchers as they are the one who makes a movie box office hit & not the black marketers. With all due respect investors in real estate are like black marketer as they didn’t wanted to live in the houses but used to wait till the rates rises & then they can make money on it! In the whole process builders as well the investors forgot that some day rates will be so high that there won’t be any genuine buyer left to pay that price, then what? No one has ever thought on these lines & outcome is what we are experiencing.

And then construction costs keep on increasing with very high labor costs as well the charges which govt is collecting per sq ft of construction area under the name of premiums also are ever rising, making the production costs remains up & ever rising. The term affordable is just now on paper as who defines affordable figure is a question no one can answer. At the same time the facilities or say infrastructure is poor in every city, as right from public transport to water to education every where a common man has to shell out lot of money apart from his EMI to repay the home loan. This also brought down the buying capacity of home buyer. And the with ample supply now in market rental option is also there, so many people opting for rental accommodation than buying a home.

The builders tried age old tactics to fight the slow down situation, giving big advertises in media, arranging exhibitions or say sale of properties like domestic goods with loads of offers & discounting under different name like no VAT or Service Tax or no registration charges or even builder himself becoming financer & what not. I think this further demoralized the mood of the market making end buyer think that its builder who is in need of the bookings & the focus has been shifted from home to discounts or offers. Another issue was diverting the funds generated from a project where the sale was good, towards other non selling projects or buying new lands at speculative rates, causing the builder enter in to dead lock of no cash flow. This affected project completion dates & with even big names the possession dates got delayed. This make the buyer not to trust on any big name & wait till the project comes in final stages at site, this further added finance burden on most developers as earlier all one has to do is invest in land so the construction money used to come from the bookings itself, which isn’t the case anymore!

Here the major mistake most builders have done is taking the end users granted! Earlier in 90’s , all one has to do is buy land & plan anything on it with amenities like club house , swimming pool, publish full page advertisements in all new papers & launch with big bang, the first phase or first lot of the flats used to get booked in just few days & then keep increasing rates for rest phases! This way of launching was possible for only big names so whatever these names used to launch used to get sold. It’s no more the condition now, as all the information about any project is available on net & today’s buyers doesn’t buy blindly or going for just big names or amenities. Today with smart phones & internet, on Google Earth you can actually see the site location & surrounding developments & compare the rates offered with other ongoing projects nearby, so like it’s shown in Idea net works advertise, no more “ullu banaing” is possible now by just advertising or offers. I don’t mean that all these big names used to fool customers but at least they can’t just en-cash their brand anymore by just the marketing gimmicks is a fact. This clientele means business & all you have to have is a good product, that’s it!

One more aspect is availability of homes as well land. The govt is in mood to use every inch of land for urbanization; though I am no expert whether it’s good or bad but it’s a fact. All the policies are in favor of converting any existing land use into residential purpose & on top of it options of more FSI in form of TDR or development FSI or paid FSI are being given to the developers. So last year saw huge inventory on front of supply of homes & this is going to be the way. Govt under the name of making homes cheaper actually wants the revenue which will be generated in the form of taxes in developing this FSI & in process has forgotten, its affordability which should be the focus of the policies & not just supply of FSI, while looking at real estate! This is a big challenge as like earlier days where demand was always more than supply, now it might be reverse case in real estate. Especially for large scale developments where at single location more number of homes will be generated.

On all such background, what should be the resolution for the New Year, which will be most challenging phase, of a real estate developer as a builder? By me, like great Sunil Gavskar has always told to the new comers in Cricket, it applies to a builder too & he says, “stick to the basics of the game; do think of making hundred every time you come to bat but reach that mark run by run, remember no one can make hundred in one over!” On same line as a builder, decide why you are building a project, & agreed it to make some money but that some money has to be defined well in advance before launching the project. Think of end user while you make your product & stay committed to the cause. Understand the changing scene of real estate & challenges & then decide your profit margins. Most important know your clientele & their demands; this genre of clients is very smart & they like their builder to be transparent & available to them. Communication, especially with clients was never forte of real estate, so let’s decide that it will be your strong point & it’s no big deal with internet like tool at your hand. Resolve that you won’t make any false promises & will stick to whatever you have promised may it be to client or even to your contractors. Don’t launch any project unless you have all sanctions in hand & stick to schedule whatever you have planned & give possession only after obtaining all the necessary noc’s from the respective agencies. At the same time resolve that you will be working on image building of self as well real estate by associating sincerely (yes that’s important) with as many activities like nature conservation & social awareness. This all seems near impossible job but then doing business wasn’t ever easy in our country provided you want to travel on an honest path. Finally as a builder, resolve that you will make yourself proud by what you build; only if every developer makes this as a personal resolution for the New Year, then there only lays hope to gain some pride for the entire real estate which is in a way “Achhe Din” for the entire industry!

Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1415&v=blgni8HSfDU

Please do visit my blogs to know about our philosophy at Sanjeevani ! (Click the links below)

http://visonoflife.blogspot.in/2015/06/agreement-ho-gaya-rabba-rabba-permanent.html

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.in/

Social Side of Sanjeevani ! (Click link below)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/sets/72157627904681345/

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Sunday, December 27, 2015

Practicing Nature!

Just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower...Hans Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, Andersen is best remembered for his fairy tales & who could forget, "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", "The Nightingale", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling", and many more. With his stories he has made millions of kid’s dreams more colorful & yes his above words do tell us in exact words about what is living in actual! And yes in today’s life what we have forgotten is to understand what it calls living! Here is where writers like Anderson help us in getting our lost charm by taking us once again in the world where everything is amazingly alive, even the trees & flowers!

Why I felt to use this quote is a recent outing trip with my friends in Tamhini Ghat, a hidden treasure of nature very close to our city life. That way I am used to have long trips in forests once in awhile but most of us can’t have luxury of long forest trips & every week on Monday morning when we woke up thinking, arrr so fast the week has ended that we hardly realized! And worst part is its gone just like the earlier week & another, with no change in our routine work oriented life which conveniently we call as carrieristic approach of ours! Have we ever thought that what the nature god has gifted us & how ignorant we are about it by not realizing & getting our self locked in our concrete routine! And this is happening with many of us right from our childhood, where aliveness was only in books. That way my childhood in a town place was such a wonderful gift to me that I don’t remember that I have ever had to purchase things like jamun, chinch or peru or ber (I beg a pardon but calling guava to peru is something I can’t imagine & so is with other fruits so uses their Marathi names); all we have to do is in season of respective fruits take out our bicycles after the school & go on wandering in nearby fields where the roads are lined up with all such fruit baring trees & either climb over them or use stone pallets to get these fruits down & eat till our stomach is full & tongue lost the taste, life was such a fun! And I am sure each of us has so many similar memories of childhood, especially those who have come from smaller towns as well are in age of thirty five plus now. After year 2000 suddenly scene changed a lot & even town boys have lost their childhood along with the entry of internet & smart phones! I don’t blame technology as it’s just a tool, the tool holding hand & mind behind those hands is the real culprit; because it doesn’t allow you to get out of technology shackles & feel the nature surrounding you.

On such background a day in nearby wilderness is such a boon as in city like Pune where jamuns & peru are getting rare even on fruit stalls; so where one can get the trees to chess such fruits? But then all one has to do is if no bicycle take our four wheelers & reach out to those trees. One such spot is on west side of Pune popularly known as Tamhini Ghat; it’s a gate way to Konkan, a stretch of some eighty kilometers passing through green hills. Just forty kilometers from Pune one can’t ever imagine such natures treat exists as once you cross paud road & western suburbs of city, suddenly you leave behind urban signs. Here the hills are green again & the breeze is lot cooler caressing your face & you can breathe the freshness of air as you no more need AC of the car which in city we use as a shield from the exhausts of millions of vehicles! Here still the villages exists & so does the famous Devraai’s with unbelievable biodiversity. Devraai is a protected forest of the village which is usually around the temple of local god. For generations these forests have been considered as sacred & protected from cutting for any purpose by the villagers. It’s a wonderful gesture of nature conservation under the shield of religious protocols. Its wisdom of our earlier generations that they had realized the greed of human being one day will destroy every good thing in nature around so they must have come up conservations means like Devraai. In exploring the Tamhini ghat you can still come across few such devraais & every shade of green as well birds chirping which has become so rare in our city life. While walking through one of the trails (there are hundreds of trails here through the vast greens) we could actually hear sound of barking dear’s calls. Here many villagers have seen leopard & sure the barking dear wasn’t calling for fun, it must have sensed presence of some wandering leopard. Then we spotted a tiger print butterfly which is largest of the specie, its violet stripes were shining in the morning sun. It was at a time quite & yet happening all around, the feeling itself was so great that you are in surrounding of such biodiversity; that it made me forget my cell phone isn’t having network & even after realizing this I wasn’t irritated!

The very same thing i.e. no network to the cell phone would have pissed me of in my city life or daily routine, but here I didn’t mind it at all! We all are so used to our gadgets that we hardly have time to feel the breeze or stop & look at flight of a butterfly or look at blossom on Amaltaash tree on the road you are driving along; even if we come across any such sight in our concrete jungle, we have no time to stop & admire such scene. The only thing that makes us stop now is red signal & that also we keep cursing or jump over if there is no policeman standing at the signal! I think this is the biggest loss of our city life that we have forget to enjoy the stops & worst is we haven’t even realized what we have lost! This is something we need to experience as its said the bad habits comes to you naturally but it’s the good ones which you have to practice! Opening up to nature or the surrounding is something which doesn’t happens to us automatically, we have to try for it. If you ask any of your friends or colleagues about what different you have done yesterday than the routine, the usual answer is in form of a question “where is the time yaar?” followed by “you know my routine na!” Each of us has our own reasons & which we believe are genuine for not changing our routine or finding out time to reach out the nature & end result is we end up in our week end waiting schedule which never ends actually.

I think answer to all such things lies right around us, many a times you get it in a trip like Tamhini, provided we go with open mind. In accepting nature as your teacher, best thing is you don’t know what it will teach you as there is no syllabus for this course. It will keep throwing lessons at you in the form of trees, birds, insects even the wind carries many fragrances, all you have to do is keep grasping. And you not only get charged with this learning but in a way you reinvent yourself. As we have forgotten what we like to do from within & that’s the biggest problem of today’s modern world. We have everything for our entertainment but we don’t know what really makes us happy & at peace. Like Tamhini ghat, there are thousands of trails to explore but which trail leads to your destination unless you try them you will never know. That is why it’s good to get lost in nature as unless you don’t get lost you don’t really start thinking where you wanted to go in first place!

And there are many such places where nature still exists in its pure form, free from our city adulteration's like mobile network or our two wheelers. It exists right where we live or work provided we practice nature to feel it. Here many will ask what I meant practicing nature, well its nothing but give some time to our self to be with nature, to feel it, to understand it, that’s all, nothing more! And you don’t need any special occasion for practicing nature as any time is a good time for meeting nature. I am diehard fan of advertises & always watch keenly many of them. In one such ad of toothpaste the tag line says “aaj close-up kiya kya?” means have you brushed your teeth with that particular brand of the toothpaste; on the same line if not every day we should ask our self every week, “aaj Nature Practice kiya kya?”

Sad part is, all such places like Tamhini ghats which naturalists’ calls habitats of many species of flora & fauna are fast getting surrendered to human greed. Best example was in our Tamhini outing, our friend who was acting as a guide & who used to visit the place quite often, took us to a spot which used to be a grass land & habitat of many species right from snakes to wild cats to jackals & many birds. To his horror we found the entire place has been fenced & work of some resort was going on, driving out even remote possibility of any animal or bird sighting, even the vegetation in form of the grass land has been removed from that piece of land! And as I mentioned above it’s not only at Tamhini but across the country everywhere places of natural habitats are getting encroached for every other use than nature. We need to work out a plan by which a balance can be strike for e.g. reserve some part of land surrounding such places for only residential or commercial purpose & acquire all lands of habitat potential & relocate the land owners at one place which has been reserved. So they won’t be driven out of the place keeping value for their investments at the same time nature conservation will also be achieved as importance of any such private land is only because its amidst or in surrounding of such natural treasure or else what value it has? Agreed that each such piece of land in Tamhini ghat belongs to some private owner & every owner has right to protect & develop property what he owns. But the challenge is how we conserve nature with all such ownership's as if everybody owns some piece of land & has a right of protecting & developing it, then finally the question arises who owns the nature then & who will be protecting it, leave apart developing it? Again the answer lays in practicing nature as unless each of us starts doing it, we won’t realize what value this treasure contains & so finally passing of responsibility buck stops at me, is what each of us has to accept & agree. Once we accept this responsibility then we can not only save places like Tamhini but can conserve nature right in the heart of even the concrete jungle we live in! And what better time than start of a New Year to not just read but live the words of the great fairy tell story teller; so let’s welcome the New Year with a promise to practice the nature & understand the meaning of living the life than just counting the days of week & waiting for week end! That will be real start of not just a New Year but start of a New Life & isn’t that more important than celebrating just a calendar date?

With this note saying good-bye to the year 2015 & wishing you all a Happy & Green New Year for Practicing Nature!

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Smart City Mission; Entertainment Cent Percent!

“Sometimes people need their faith to be rewarded”… Dark Knight, Batman Movie!

Probably the worlds maximum money grosser series of movies yet not just a super hero movie but full of life’s philosophy too & the quote says so! I think what keeps happening repeatedly in our Pune city is somewhat similar to action sequels of the movies as we do need something to debate, to gossip or to let our frustration out & our rulers keeps us busy like the production houses of Batman movies, every year releasing a new flick! If you are not satisfied with my analogy then have a look at this, some time we discuss about garbage depot then we are busy with infamous Metro & its route & then we are fighting about cctv camera all around the city, then suddenly its BDP i.e. hill tops & hill slopes & latest shows running in the cinemas is Smart City! Here cinemas are media, then every corner group talks, PMC general house & every party is playing some role in all these movies which sometimes takes form of a TV soap opera, as some are repeatedly aired on the horizon of city every day with new episode! Some of these serials can beat even popular serials of TV like CID, as take garbage depot serial, now it’s running for last fifteen years yet its TRP is high. Then we have got other serials too like BRT which is now running for nearly ten years & then there is Metro serial too which is there for seven years!

What I meant is we don’t find any solution to any of above subjects but we just enjoy discussing about them & our rulers conveniently change the shows or timings of episode airing as per their priorities & here is where the batman movie quote come in picture as what rulers wants that only is being shown to us all the time but what we i.e. watchers of the show i.e. common citizen wants, that is never considered & the latest Smart City show isn’t also exception to this thumb rule! Its latest entrant hardly got aired for last six months but it got highest TRP, surpassing all other shows.

So like a TV "sans bahu" serial the smart city story crawled ahead & there was “kahanime twist” at the end; with general body i.e. apex body of all elected corporaters withholding the proposal of smart city which was to sent to the central govt & dead line was 15^th Dec (which eventually is my birth date too, though this is just a coincidence). The administration has prepared all the ammunition to fire but the rulers have something different in mind they just removed the firing pin of the gun itself! Again there was huge cry in media, social network, followed by agitations all across the segments of society. Municipal Commissioner appalled to Chief Minister who is top boss for urban development department which controls Municipal Corporation. CM gave order to rethink on the proposal in general body & make it through. Then on 14^th Dec a special General body meeting has been called & it went for whole day nearly thirteen hours & with lots of corrections the so called smart city proposal has cleared by our city rulers & submitted to the central govt. All the time it was like India Pakistan match which went live wire till last ball of the over! This all has been in news paper & everybody taking credit for clearing the smart city proposal but irony is we have to witness such a childish or foolish display of how immature we are as a society towards as serious topic as smart city. I am no authority on smart city concept or its worth for the city yet one simple thing as an engineer or citizen I understand, nothing wrong if something is making this city a shade better than it is in present status. Only the approach should have been more professional & mature is what a common citizen feels.

Look at the hype created & sure it indeed was a sincere effort by the Municipal Commissioner to get Pune at top in smart city ranking, yet right from beginning a wise person would have guessed the attitude of elected members about the concept itself. First of all for those who won’t have understood the entire movie or serial, let’s understand the concept or procedure of smart city in nutshell. Smart City Mission is central govt’s scheme under which ninety eight cities from entire country have been chosen to uplift them on front of facilities they will be providing to their citizens. From Maharashtra State ten cities have been chosen & Pune is one of them. Now out of these ninety-eighth first some thirteen odd cities will get funding in first phase & for that various parameters will be considered by the committee at central level. But for that the proposal should reach to the committee before 15^th Dec, was one of the conditions & that has to be approved by the local body of the particular city which in our case in Municipal Corporation means general body which consists of all the elected members of PMC! Here many don’t understand the power of general body. The administration of PMC may have executing powers but all those come only after approval by the general body popularly known as GB! Not even our development plan of the city can get sanctioned or published if GB doesn’t approves this & here is where lies the twist in the kahani of smart city as the GB didn’t approved the proposal of smart city which is to be sent to the central govt.

As many objections were raised by the GB for smart city proposal made by the administration, which may be true but then right from the beginning who has stopped the elected members to take part in understanding the concept of the smartness? The major concern was shown about the SPV i.e. special purpose vehicle company to be formed which is supposed to govern all the works to be carried out under smart city mission. GB felt this company will take over control of entire working of PMC & this nobody has dared yet! Right from allocating acquired amenity spaces to approval of fund utilization to appointing consultants, many of the decisions were to be taken by this SPV which will be headed by Municipal Commissioner, though there was enough representation given to the elected members on SPV, yet seems GB wanted full authority over it.

What I failed to understand is, whether it’s a fact that the proposal wasn’t shown to the GB right in the beginning, which leads the fight over it went till last hour! And if it's not shown then why no one tried to understand what is proposal of smart city & how it’s going to be functioned? Then another objection was about ratio of funds from the central versus the additional tax burden it will required on citizens for taking care of PMC’s share of funds to be raised. Here I will like to ask, till now has GB ever judiciously worked how much tax per head is to be collected per head & how much is being collected which will be in benefit of the city. And then comes the part of the execution of the works at hand through the funds which are being generated even in today’s tax system, year after year policy proposals like water or property tax are kept pending, the infra works doesn’t get completed ever in time is a fact. The classic example is of the amenity spaces which has come under possession of PMC & thousands of other such properties which are in PMC’s ownership. Have we ever published a list of all such properties with mentioning the use they are being put for? Why we need a smart city tag for such very basic things, which GB or let’s say, the civic administration, whoever it may be, has repeatedly failed! Never known GB raising voice over such issues & making administration work in interest of benefit of the city or citizens? So what moral right GB has now to make a cry over losing control on the infrastructure works under smart city mission or about so called tax rise?

Now here many innocent souls will ask, why so? Isn’t the smart city proposal supposed to be for benefit of the city? Well, yes it is but then GB either doesn’t think so or benefit of the city is very relative term i.e. it is equally possible that in the eyes of GB smart city may be better for the city but not for the GB itself! Again the same innocent souls may ask, isn’t the rulers of our city whom we have elected as our representives are supposed to have same views as ours when it comes to have benefits? So for those souls I will share a dialogue from a Prakash Jha’s movie “Apaharan”. Ajay Deogan is shown a youth, son of a very honest social worker named Shastriji & whose aspiration is to join gang of a local don, role played by Nana Patekar. When he approaches to Nana patekar with a crime record to impress him, Nana approves his request & appoints him as his lieutenant in his gang. One of Nana’s associates objects this saying ajay deogan is son of an honest social worker Shastriji! On this Nana just laughs & says, “ab kaha kisika beta raha wo!” Meaning, now when he has decided to join the criminal gang, he is nobody’s son anymore may it be even Shastriji!

Entire above scene is hardly of five minutes but to all those innocent souls who thinks that once you elected somebody then he will think in your interests only; well, once got elected then he is nobody’s representive but his own, is the unfortunate truth of the democracy. If not so then leave apart smart city so many things which we discussed above regarding the city, wouldn’t have kept lingered without any action. Please understand, I don’t want to disrespect GB or any elected members yet if they have so much strong feelings that smart city proposal is not in benefit of the city then why it’s not rejected right at the start? And if GB has realized it later then when it’s been rejected by deferring its submission date which any way would have been end of it, then again why it’s been cleared in the special GB on last minute of the submission date that too when asked by Hon Cm to conduct a special GB? Why GB didn’t stood firm of rejection of the smart city proposal? And then the proposal has been sent to central govt with so many basic suggestions which are directly in contrast with the principles of the smart city mission, so it’s not sure whether the central govt’s committee will be accepting them or rejecting the entire proposal or force the proposal on the city in its original form!

The open secret of all this “showbaji” by every political party was, elections of PMC are just round the corner & no party wanted to take the blame that they were in opposition of making this city smart as it would have been very difficult to win the seats in elections with this tag around the neck. Joke is in all process no political party or social or print media hasn’t understood the concept of the smart city. Open any news paper & what you read is problems & more problems around & most of them are outcome of the very same citizens & the civic body servants as well elected members behavior. So getting a tag of smart city isn’t going to change anything but every individuals attitude is what going to make this city smart, this simple fact we have failed to understand.

Or else we may get first ranking for smart city on the basis of presentations we do & may even get funding but the Roads will keep choking with traffic, People will keep throwing garbage everywhere at their will, Car & Bike riders will keep on jumping red signals putting lives of everyone on road at threat, River will keep getting polluted, Metro proposal will keep on delaying every year along with its budget getting bigger, BRT will get new date every month for its starting, Garbage depot will keep on overflowing, Public toilets will remain dirty & every Infra projects will get delayed & still the life will go on. Only change will be in the records of some Govt files, the name of Pune city will have an entry before its name, "Smart Pune City"! Do we want this as outcome of Smart City Mission? I think this truth common citizen wants to know & it’s high time to reward his faith, is what our rulers should understand & respond, there only lays the success of Smart City Mission!