After giving an in-principle approval to the first part of the development plan (DP) for Baner and Balewadi villages in January, the State Government on Thursday gave an in-principle go-ahead to the “second unit” of the DP relating to Bavdhan Khurd and Kothrud. Significantly, the Pune Municipal Corporation has also managed to get an in-principle approval to develop roads in all the new 23 merged villages. This is expected to speed up the development work ahead of the Commonwealth Youth Games (CYG), now just 150 days away.

The total area of the land reserved for roads in all the 23 merged villages is put at 929.8 hectares. Apart from roads, land reservations for the sewage treatment plants (STP) and storm water and drainage development projects also received an in-principle approval, Mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale, who attended the meeting in Mumbai, told this to reporters on Thursday.

“With these approvals, the development work of roads and STPs would take off immediately. The PMC has got huge corpus of funds for the development works under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). However, the road development work in these merged villages could not be initiated as the draft DP had not been given a clearance by the government. However, we have been able to convince the government officials, even though these points were not on the agenda,” said Bhosale.

“The government assured us that a notification giving a final approval to the Baner-Balewadi, as well as Bavdhan and Kothrud DPs would be issued in a few days time,” said Bhosale.

The meeting was attended, among others, by Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, District Guardian Minister Ajit Pawar, Principal Secretary Urban Development Department T C Benjamin, and Minister of State for Urban Affairs Rajesh Tope, Municipal Commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi and city engineer Prashant Waghmare.