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Rina Mukherji, Pune
Published: Jul. 28, 2025
Updated: Jul. 28, 2025
Pune has morphed from a quiet pensioners’ town into a bustling, chaotic IT and manufacturing hub in the past 25 years. Along with it, predictably, have come numerous urban problems: disappearing greenery, power outages, inadequate public transport, poor sewage disposal, potholed roads, traffic, and a crumbling public health system.
A panel representing different professions debated the city’s problems at a recent webinar organized by INHAF Habitat Forum on the “Development Challenges of Pune.” It concluded by seeing hope in people-centric inclusive development.
Founded by Kirtee Shah, an architect and social activist based in Ahmedabad, INHAF has been advocating better urban management and people-centric sustainable urban spaces across India. Earlier webinars have focused on Vadodara and Ahmedabad. INHAF then moved on to discussing cities in Maharashtra — coming up after Pune are Nashik, Nagpur, and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (formerly Aurangabad). And there are plans to look into the problems faced by five cities in Odisha.
The idea behind the webinars is to forge a wider social partnership to transform urban centres into more just, participatory and technologically adaptive cities, rather than unrealistically depending on the government to do everything, according to Shah.
The webinar was anchored by Anupam Saraph, an authority on Future Design, a methodology that encourages decision- makers to think of future generations while deciding policies. He used a question-and-answer format.
On the one hand, migrants pouring into Pune have contributed to its growing economy, said the panellists. On the other hand, overcrowding was causing the city to burst at its seams.
Vandana Chavan, Member of Parliament, former councillor and founder-president of ALERT, a network initiative to bring about dialogue between government, elected representatives and citizens on climate change, noted with concern how Pune’s Floor Space Index (FSI), which was just one, had risen to between five and nine, leading to frenetic construction and unaffordable housing in the city.
There was little regard shown for the carrying capacity of the city, resulting in heavy flooding every monsoon with cars and people getting washed away. Meanwhile, despite the emphasis on infrastructure development, public transport remained as bad as ever.
Chavan’s point of view was endorsed by political scientist Suhas Palshikar who saw the higher FSI as the single factor contributing most to unaffordable housing in Pune, even as water availability and sewage disposal were not provided for. Calling for greater democratization of urban governance, Palshikar talked of the need to mobilize the lower half of society, to make our cities more vibrant.
Meher Pudumjee, chairperson of Thermax, who heads the Pune Zonal Council of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), emphasized the need for inclusivity in urban expansion.
“Business cannot thrive in a society that has failed,” she said, expressing concern over the mushrooming of slums and the low standards of education in municipal schools. “It causes many students to drop out of government schools, and move to private schools, paying fees they cannot afford. The government needs to look into this.”
Pudumjee stressed the need to think through urban growth a lot better so that cities could be more equal in their access to services, opportunities and quality of life.
“Urban planning requires long-term thinking. There is no simple solution to anything. When you build or widen a road, it results in increased traffic and higher pollution. Trees are cut down, resulting in loss of green cover,” she said.
She spoke about the lack of traffic discipline resulting in regular accidents.
Ramanath Jha, former Pune municipal commissioner, has vast experience in governance, having served on several urban local bodies as a top bureaucrat down the years. He dwelt on how there can be no ‘one size fits all’ solution to urban problems.
“Smaller cities have a governance architecture quite different from medium-sized or metropolitan cities. What I learned serving in Pandharpur had to be unlearned when I served in Solapur, and again in Pune and Mumbai. Working on Mumbai’s development plan and creating parking spaces was an extremely difficult experience. I had to unlearn everything. Truth be told, I am still learning.” But he was clear that “each city develops its own theory of change, though basics such as water, power and sewage, remain common concerns everywhere.”
Like other panelists, Jha saw hope in inclusivity and people-centric governance which, he rued, was not what the authorities wanted.“Notwithstanding the 74th Amendment, the government does not want decentralization. The trend is towards more centralization. We need reforms, but no reforms have taken place,” he said.
He explained: “The Nagar Raj Bill was not adopted by any state. It is not that reforms or decentralization cannot be brought in. It is the political will that is lacking. Sadly, this is not in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution. Citizens need to have a voice in their wards. We do not see that today. Further, the Goods & Services Tax (GST) has taken away a lot of revenue from urban local bodies.”
Noting that no country can stop urbanization, he pointed to the kind of governance followed in developed countries. The role of the mayor was important. “The mayor is the chief executive. This is the kind of leadership you need to steer a city. That is not available here,” Jha said.
Besides, he pointed out, there is a paucity of data available in the public domain. Both Jha and Chavan saw the present problems faced by Pune as resulting from a lack of vision and ideas on how the city ought to develop. Palshikar and Chavan rued how expectations fell short in a few decades. “When we looked forward to Pune developing as an IT hub, we did not realize the social inequity and traffic jams that would follow down the line,” was their opinion.
Commenting on the Smart Cities programme, under which Pune is to be developed as a Smart City, Chavan said, “It is a totally failed endeavour.” He was also against the government merging more and more villages into Pune’s municipal limits. He saw it as completely unnecessary. “These villages have developed well as per Gaothan norms. Merging them only contributes to numerous problems,” he said. Gaothan norms are rules and regulations that apply to the expansion and development of village areas.
There was consensus among the panellists that inclusive people-centric governance would create a better city. Pudumjee, in fact, stated, “With inclusivity, everything else will follow.”
Shah concluded the webinar with some pertinent observations: In another 25 years, over 800 million people are expected to live in India’s urban areas. This foretells a crisis, unless the increased population and the capacity for local governance are adequately taken into account. Varying strategies are needed to deal with the rapid urbanization that is imminent.
Urbanization and the influx of migrants go hand in hand. We need to be prepared and people’s participation in governance can help steer us towards better solutions. ν
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