Civic body struggling to get land for water tanks in BDP

PUNE: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is currently facing a problem in acquiring land for seven overhead reservoirs for 24x7 water supply project. Though the State Government has decided to give compensation to landowners in bio-diversity park (BDP) reserved area, owners are reluctant to give land for a development project as compensation rate is not reasonable. 

The Agriculture College and Forest Department are also not ready to hand over land to the PMC for the water tank. Under the 24x7 equitable and uninterrupted water supply project, the PMC has decided to build overhead water tanks across the city. There are total 103 overhead water tanks proposed under the scheme.

In 2016, the civic administration passed a proposal to construct 103 water tanks across the city to achieve its objective of equitable water supply to each house. Out of these 103 water tanks, the PMC had already made a budgetary allocation for constructing 15 water tanks and reconstructing six water tanks.

The construction of the remaining 82 water tanks has been planned. The civic body conducted a survey with the help of a private contractor and fixed location of water tanks for the 24x7 water supply scheme. 

The PMC has given the contract to L&T Company to construct water tanks in the city. At present, the work of 57 water tanks is in progress. The PMC is struggling to get land for seven overhead water tanks. It requires around 20,000 square feet piece of land to construct one overhead water tank.

In seven overhead water tanks, the PMC has identified three locations in BDP reserved land. The PMC wants to construct two tanks in Wadgaon (Budruk) hill and one in Ambegaon hill BDP land.

While speaking to Sakal Times, Nandkumar Jagtap, Superintendent Engineer of PMC Water Supply Department, said, “We need land to construct overhead water tanks in BDP area. However, landowners are not interested to hand over land to the corporation over the issue of compensation. The State Government has finalised 20 per cent of compensation of BDP land based on the adjacent ready reckoner rate of land. Ready reckoner rates is the price of the property for a given area which is published and regulated by the State Government,”

“However, owners claim that the compensation offered is very less. They want cash compensation and they are not interested in Transfer Development Rights (TDR). However, we can give compensation within the framework of government rule and not more than that,” he said. 

“In the case of Forest Department and Agriculture College land, the PMC has planned four water tanks. But they refused to provide land to the civic body. However, we are corresponding with the State Government for getting land from these two departments,” Jagtap added.