The modern city of Pune has many distinct neighbourhoods. These include the numerous peths of the old city on the eastern bank of the Mutha river, the cantonment areas of Khadki and Pune built by the British, old suburbs such as Deccan Gymkhana and the newer ones such as Kothrud on the western bank of the Mutha river. Industrial developments started in the 1950s in the outlining areas of the city such as Hadapsar in the east and, Bhosari and Pimpri in the north, respectively.[66] The industrial growth in the Pimpri, Chinchwad and Bhosari areas allowed these areas to incorporate as the separate city of Pimpri-Chinchwad.[113][114] Many other villages on the fringe have been absorbed by the cities of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad in recent decades. Some of these villages have now grown into fully fledged suburbs such as Kothrud, Katraj, Hadapsar, Aundh and Baner.[115] Since the advent of the IT industry at the turn of the century, Hinjawadi and Wagholi have emerged as a prominent suburb.[116][117][118][119] The Pune Metropolitan Region (PMR), initially defined in 1967, has grown to include a combined area of 7,256.46 km2 spread over ten talukas of the Pune district.[120] The twin cities of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad along with the three cantonment areas of Pune, Khadki and Dehu Road form the urban core of the PMR, which further includes seven municipal councils and 842 villages.
The Panshet Dam flood of 1961 damaged or destroyed a lot of old housing close to the river bank in the Narayan, Shaniwar and Kasba Peth areas of the city. However, the traditional houses in the city center, the ‘wadas’ and the ‘chawls’ still have significant percentage of population residing in them.[123] The damage caused by the 1961 disaster spurred development of new suburbs and housing complexes in the city such as Maharshinagar, Sahakarnagar, and Lokmanyanagar to the south of the old city and Gokhalenagar to the west of the city.
The rapid industrialization since the 1960s has led to huge influx of people to the city. With housing supply not keeping pace with demand, the number of slum dwellings has greatly increased.[125] Approximately 36% of the population lives in 486 slum areas. Out of these, 55% of slum households have in-house toilet facilities and 90% have electricity. One third of the slums are on mixed ownership land. Overall, the living conditions in slums vary considerably, depending on their status (formal/informal) and in how far NGOs, CBOs and government facilities are involved and committed to improving the local living conditions.
In the post-Panshet period since the early 1960s, new housing has been in the form of bungalows and apartment buildings. However, in the last twenty years, due to heavy demand for housing there is a trend towards knocking down bungalows and converting them into multi-storey apartment buildings under co-operative housing societies.[123] The consequent increase in population density has led to severe pressure on utilities such as water supply.
Since the 1990s, a number of integrated townships and gated communities have come into being on the outskirts of the city on former agriculture land such as Magarpatta, Nanded, Amanora, Blue Ridge, Life Republic and Lavasa.[127] Most of these were built by private developers and also managed privately. Besides housing, they offer business opportunities and access to infrastructure, which, by law, has to be significantly better than in the rest of the city, e.g. with 24/7 provision of electricity and water. The largest and most prestigious of these townships, Magarpatta City, was developed by a local farmers’ community and described as ‘self-sustainable ecological habitat'. Integrated townships provide essential infrastructure services like schools, health care and recreational facilities. According to PMC, six townships with up to 15,000 housing units already existed in Pune in 2012 and 25 more were in the planning process.[123]
Peths in Pune
Peth is a general term in the Marathi language for a locality in the Indian city of Pune. Up to seventeen peths are located in central Pune, and were mostly established during the Maratha empire era under the Peshwa rule of the city in the 18th century. Seven of them are named after the days of the week in Marathi: traders and craftsmen in a given locality mainly conducted business only on that day of the week. Today the peths form the heart of Pune city, and are referred to as the old city, or simply city. They are considered to be the cultural heart of Pune.
Comments
Post a Comment