Pune Metro Project - debrief

Here’s apprising you of the Rs.10,000 crore Pune Metro project, of which the General Body of the PMC is all set to pass a part of it for implementation on June 5 – that is, the least priority corridor called the Vanaz-Ramwadi Corridor comprising about 15 kms (Which the DPR itself says will not reach minimum passenger capacity even in 2031).

Following are the points

May 2006: Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar says he will look into a metro rail project for Pune, provided the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal corporations submitted a combined plan.

November 2006 : A proposal is tabled before the PMC’s standing committee to get a detailed project report from the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited (DMRC) to implement the metro.

March 2007: DMRC submits the draft of the DPR to the PMC. In fact, the first draft of the DPR was shown to the railway engineering experts headed by Mr Vijay Rane, who analyse it and submit their comments and suggestions. The Mayor requests that the draft be sent for a review by the DMRC along with points raised by the railway engineering experts. However, no suggestions were incorporated by the DMRC.

July 2009: DMRC submits a final draft for the metro rail DPR (Detailed Project Report) to the PMC. When the DMRC team came to Pune on July 6 to submit the DPR, the railway engineering experts were called for the DMRC presentation and were requested to give their presentation after DMRC. However, immediately after the DMRC presentation the meet was suddenly declared as over and the experts were not allowed to show their presentation, which highlighted the need for some changes in the `flawed’ DMRC report.

The DPR of the Rs.10,000 crore Project, the biggest ever for Pune, is not made public, not even to the 144 corporators, the elected representatives of the 35 odd lakh population. Moreover, it is in English although two-third of the corporators cannot read English. The Marathi version has not yet been made – only after Raj Thackeray made a request 10 days back, a summary booklet has been made which glorifies the Pune Metro project. Hence, majority of the corporators still do not have a clue of the contents of the project.

The 435 page report is superficial, does not adhere to the Central Government guidelines of the in-depth content of a DPR for such mass transport systems (the Central Govt order dated Nov 11,2006). In sharp contrast, the Thane Metro Project DPR made way back in 2002 comprises seven fat volumes and comprises all aspects including the integrated traffic and transport plan and gives several options.

The Metro Rail Project has not been envisioned in Pune’s Development Plan of 1987 thus denying citizens the right to check the route of the Metro plan and give their suggestions and objections. No amendment has also been sought in the DP to include this Metro Rail. Hence, the DPR is itself illegal.

Since August 2009: Besides railway engineering experts, town planning experts, architects and urban designers have been raising questions against the wishy-washy DPR for which PMC paid the DMRC Rs.2 crore. They questioned the funding pattern, part of which is to increase the FSI to 4 for a 500m area on either sides of the 31.5 km proposed route. This would mean heavy load on the infrastructure, as, at this rate, 20 lakh more people could be accommodated in this concrete jungle along the metro corridor. All fell on deaf ears

August 2009: Chief minister Ashok Chavan assures funding for the project.

December 2009: The Pune Metro Sahakarya Samiti (PMSS), a citizens’ forum comprising transport experts, writes to finance minister Pranab Mukherjee asking him to look into the ‘technology scam’ in the Pune metro project.

January 20, 2010: The standing committee of the PMC approves the DPR, although none of the members had even seen what the DPR looks like.

January 30, 2010: The General Body of the PMC comprising 144 corporators approves the proposal. (In a `Metro Mahacharcha’ which the Pune Metro JAgruti Abhiyaan (PMJA) organised on May 17,2010, wherein political leaders form all political parties came on one platform to interact with citizens, they confessed that 99 per cent of them had not read the DPR. When one sole corporator asked for the copy, the Municipal Commissioner said that he forgot to attach it.)

All parties including the NCP, Congress, BJP, Shiv Sena and MNS support the proposal during this General Body meeting.

Corridor I which is the high density corridor and runs through the twin cities of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad is approved However, the PCMC withdraws from the Metro project, I believe over the funding issue in which the local bodies were to give 10 per cent of the project expenditure from their pockets (Each was to share 5 per cent). PCMC refuses to give 5 per cent and withdraws and asks the DMRC to make an independent DPR for the PCMC. The state government rejects the proposal sent by the General Body and asks the PMC to explain how it would get the 10 per cent funds now that the PCMC has backed out and then send it back for approval. (in the funding pattern shown in the DPR, PMC will contribute 10 per cent, while the state and the Centre will contribute 20 per cent each. The remaining 50 per cent will be sourced from private players). It is interesting to note that a few weeks back the planning commission has stated that the centre would not fund for metro projects.

February 2010: The metro proposal finds no mention in Pranab Mukherjee’s Budget speech. Allocations are made for the Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai metro projects.

March 2010: The metro proposal finds no mention in the PMC budget of 2010-2011

March 2010 : With PCMC ditching it at the last moment, the standing committee of the PMC resolves hurriedly to opt for the metro railway on the least priority corridor which is the proposed 14.925 km corridor from Vanaz to Ramwadi. The Pune Technical Coalition (PTC), a conglomeration of architects, engineers, town planners, builders demands that the shortcomings be addressed. All falls on deaf ears

April 2010: The PMC standing committee decides that a special purpose vehicle be formed to implement the project. Kuldeep Singh, a consultant for the Delhi and Bangalore projects, says Pune’s project is “devoid of options and needs an intelligent appraisal”.

April 17,2010: The Pune Metro Jagruti Abhiyaan (PMJA) is formed. This is because the politicians and the civic administration showed no inclination to keep the public informed about the various physical, social, economical and psychological impacts the elevated corridor along congested prime arterial roads is going to have on citizens. They also saw presentations done by PTCC and yet did not make any moves to consider their suggestions/recommendations. In order to make the campaign comprehensive and formidable - PMJA, PTCC (comprising 21 organisations of railway and civil engineers, town planners, urban designers, architects) and Janwani (NGO of the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA) have teamed up together to make public presentations in neighbourhoods, organisations and different communities. We decided that information dissemination to Puneites will ensure that they know the issue and then make an informed opinion. We took upon us, what the PMC and the coroporators should have done at the outset. Let’s call it PMJA hereafter while referring to our combined efforts in this campaign. We also launched a citizen signature campaign for which we got a good response.

May 2, 2010: PMJA organizes a protest rally along Jangli Maharaj Road – over 300 citizens including celebrities attend it.

May 19, 2010: PMJA organizes the citizen gate meeting at the PMC gate – for this is the day when the Special General Body was to give approval to the 10 per cent funding pattern. Nearly 200 citizens joined the gate meeting and all of us sat in the citizen gallery and witnessed the General Body meeting. Opposition parties demanded more time on the backdrop of citizens having raised doubts regarding the proposal. The ruling NCP-Congress reluctantly did so and declared the next special GB on June 5.

What we are objecting to in the DMRC report:

• The elected representatives have passed it blindly. How can a Rs.10,000 crore project be passed by the 144 corporators without even reading it?
• The DMRC report gives no options and does not take other existing public transport into consideration. Meaning, there is no integrated traffic and transport plan
• An elevated corridor through the most congested arterial roads has been blindly accepted. The underground option has not been worked out in detail though the DMRC report says `underground metro’ is preferred for Pune but would be 2.5 times more expensive (no detailing has been done to arrive at this cost, although it could have considering that it has made both in Delhi and Kolkata example is already there. Experts including the IIT report have suggested ways by which an underground metro could cost almost the same as an elevated one but the PMC and the DMRC are refusing to even give an ear to this)
• The DPR mentions the provision of 4 FSI along the metro corridor which means creation of multi-storeyed concrete jungle along the route creating space for 25 lakh more people
• According to experts land acquisition would be around 5 lakh sq feet. The metro runs through thick residential and commercial neighbourhoods and it would require acquiring (meaning demolishing) many private properties but citizens along that corridor have not at all been informed. Many still have the perception that metro is beautiful and an underground one is coming for their city
• The public has not been informed about the details of the corridor
• Questions and doubts addressed by the technical experts and citizens are not being heard by the civic chief and political leaders
• Why is the least priority corridor chosen? There are no answers given.
• We are asking for `Jansunwai’ at a big auditorium like the Bal Gandharva but there has been no response
• We are asking for dissemination of information through boards in public chowks and advertisement through newspapers and all other public form of information dissemination to tell the citizens along that corridor for they would be getting in terms of disruption of their day to day lives for several years, demolition of properties and all other details. There has been no response.\
• It is being alleged that we are just a handful of citizens who are protesting to put Pune 50 years back and the common man is not taking objections. How will the common man object if he is not informed? All our presentations have had great public response. At Kothrud, 600 odd citizens turned out and were shocked to know the details

Democracy is being throttled by the power of the chair and money.

For further details of the Pune Metro pl visit: www.intelligentpune.org – on the home page itself, on the left hand side top, there are English and Marathis presentations

Cheers and warm rgds,

co-convener PMJA