Pune builders exploiting hills as administration looks the other way

Pune: It took the Pune district administration the death of a 34-year-old woman and her 14-month-old daughter - swept away in the flash floods on the busy Pune-Bangalore highway a fortnight back - to realise the magnitude of illegal construction on the city's hills.

Debris from unauthorised construction had blocked the otherwise natural flow of water from the hills; water gushed on the roads and vehicles were washed away. The woman and her daughter died while trying to escape the fury of the water that drowned their car near the Katraj tunnel in the city.  

The condemnation and protests of the administration forced the guardian angels of the city to take stock of the problem. From just a few kilometres near the Shindewwadi hills where the unauthorised constructions were on, the administration removed 150 structures - from big buildings to small kiosks that had escaped the administrations eyes for many years - all illegal. The district collector and the divisional commissioner of Pune are now sending frantic notices to all concerned offices to make sure that illegal constructions are brought down.

However, former IAS officer, Avinash Dharmadhikari, who has worked in Pune and knows the functioning of the politically-controlled bureaucracy in the city, says, "This is just an eyewash to show that the administration means business.'' He questioned how could the government departments ignore the unauthorised constructions happening on hills for many years and act only after an accident takes place. Mr Dharmadhikari, however, cautioned that many more accidents would continue to happen as the administration cannot act against the high and the mighty - as many illegalities have the blessings and even partnerships of builders with politicians and the bureaucrats.

At the NIBM, an upmarket Pune area, a builder has covered an entire hill with huge tin sheets so that it blocks the view of people passing by from the road. But one look behind the tin sheets and an entire hill is being chopped and sliced to make way for a residential project. When confronted, the project architect, Dinesh Chandratre, maintained that all necessary permissions were obtained from the government departments. "The building will not come on the hills so we are breaking it down," was the explanation he gave, insisting that there was nothing illegal about the project.

The divisional commissioner, Prabhakar Deshmukh, assured all illegalities will be looked into. When NDTV questioned him why no action has been taken against the officers for their complicity in these illegalities, he again assured of a "thorough enquiry and action will be taken against the guilty."

The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and the district administration may have given the necessary permissions, so what if it's just one hill that is going down. Except that it's not just one - but one more. Puneites may complain about the city's transformation from a pensioner's paradise to a concrete jungle, but the builder who is bringing the hill down has nothing to worry as he has got all the paper work done. And in Pune everyone knows how this is done. No marks for guessing it right.