Nearly five years after 23 villages were absorbed into the Pune Municipal Corporation’s limits, the civic body’s General Body has approved a proposal to finally prepare an official Development Plan for these areas — clearing the way for a planning exercise that will shape land use, infrastructure, and housing in some of the city’s fastest-growing peripheral zones for the next two decades.

What Was Approved

At a General Body meeting on June 23, 2026, PMC approved the appointment of City Engineer Aniruddha Pavaskar as the planning officer for the new Development Plan. The 23 villages include Sus, Bavdhan Budruk, Wagholi, Pisoli, Manjari Budruk, Narhe, Khadakwasla, Mhalunge, Nanded, Kondhave Dhawade, and others — many of them rapidly urbanising areas where unregulated construction has been the norm since the merger in June 2021.

The plan will begin with a detailed survey of existing land use across all 23 villages. Based on that survey, planners will map future requirements for roads, water supply, sewerage, green spaces, and social infrastructure over a 20-year horizon. The draft will be published for public objections and suggestions before going to a state government committee for final approval.

Why It Took Five Years

The delay has a specific cause: a previously prepared draft by the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) ran into serious opposition. Critics alleged the PMRDA plan converted agricultural land to residential zones in ways that favoured developers, with problematic reservations that drew public protests. The state government subsequently cancelled the PMRDA draft and reassigned the work to PMC — the body that directly governs these villages now.

In the intervening years, residents of these villages have lived in a planning grey zone: merged into PMC for taxation and administrative purposes, but lacking the formal Development Plan protections — floor space index norms, road widths, reservations for schools and hospitals — that come with official planned status. Builders and landowners have operated on provisional permissions, creating significant uncertainty about what can be built where and fuelling disputes between residents and developers.

What Residents Can Expect

A Development Plan is not a promise of immediate infrastructure — it is a legally binding blueprint that guides all future construction and civic investment in an area. Its practical value is substantial: once in place, it prevents ad-hoc rezoning, locks in road widths and open spaces, and gives residents legal standing to oppose non-conforming construction.

For the several lakh people now living across these 23 villages, the most consequential stage will be the public objections period, when draft plans are published and residents can formally flag incorrect land-use designations, missing road reservations, or inadequate green spaces. Corrections made at the draft phase are far easier — and cheaper — to obtain than post-approval disputes. Housing societies and local resident associations in these areas should monitor when the draft is published and organise their responses accordingly.

Outlook

PMC has set no hard deadline — the completion timeline is described as “the next few years.” Given that the earlier PMRDA exercise took several years without producing an acceptable result, a realistic horizon for a final approved plan is three to four years from today. The near-term milestones to watch are the commencement of the land-use survey and the eventual publication of the draft plan, which is the key moment for community input.

Maharashtra’s broader push for planned development in the Pune region, backed by a ₹4,628 crore PMRDA budget approved by the Chief Minister’s office, suggests state-level political will is now aligned with getting these outstanding plans finalised. Whether that will translate into a faster, more transparent process than the cancelled PMRDA draft remains to be seen — but for the first time since 2021, these 23 villages have a clear institutional owner for their planning future.

Sources: The Bridge Chronicle, Swarajya Mag

This report was compiled and written with AI assistance from publicly reported sources, and reviewed for accuracy.