"The approval of part DP by State Government has triggered the process of sanctioning the pending draft DP for the 23 merged villages," Municipal Commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi said.

The draft DP has been divided into 10 units and first unit of Baner and Balewadi villages was approved by the government at a meeting attended, among others, by Minister of State for Urban Affairs Rajesh Tope, Additional Chief Secretary Ramanand Tiwari, Mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale, Municipal Commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi and City Engineer Prashant Waghmare.

Pardeshi said the draft DP for Baner and Balewadi was approved by the State Government without any changes along with the 89 hectare reserved for bio-diversity park (BDP).

Most of the land reserved for BDP in the two villages belong to various government organisations and the work for developing it has already begun, he added.

"The approved part DP covers 1290 hectare of Baner and Balewadi villages. It has around 118 reservations in the area," PMC city engineer Prashant Waghmare told reporters.

The part DP for Baner and Balewadi villages was given sanction to ensure development work of the area before the Common Wealth Youth Games in October 2008.

Wahgmare said the approved DP for the two villages does not include town planning scheme in the area.

Thus, the concern ended for losing the "green" development plan for 23 villages likely to getting stuck due to the builder lobby pressurising the government to allow land on hill slopes and hill tops for construction purpose was .

The planning committed in its draft DP for the 23 villages merged in PMC in 1987 had banned constructions on the hills and along the banks of the rivers. The draft DP was submitted to state government for approval on January 1, 2005.

The PMC had accepted the recommendations of the Centre for Advance development Computing (C-DAC) and environmentalist for preparing draft DP.

Meanwhile, BJP corporator Ujjwal Keskar alleged that there is change in the BDP reservations approved by the state government in part DP of the two villages.