Special meeting soon on biodiversity parks

PUNE: State minister for environment Ramdas Kadam said the issue of protecting biodiversity parks (BDPs) on the hills of the city will be taken up soon.
Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) had not allocated any funds in its 2017-18 budget for the project included in Pune’s 2007-2027 draft development plan (DP).
Kadam said he will call a special meeting to discuss the issue of tekdis.“We will take up the matter on ground,” he told TOI. However, he did not specify the date of the meeting.
Nearly 1,600 hectares were demarcated under BDPs as per the draft DP. Environmentalists have been vocal about PMC’s ‘stalling approach’ to the problem of land on the hills of Pune still being encroached upon by constructions.
With close to 978 hectares demarcated land being privately-owned, PMC, on its part, states that this land is yet to be acquired, pending finalisation of compensation terms for the owners. Work will begin once all the land acquisition is completed, civic officials said.
Illegal constructions continue to crop up in these areas. Civic officials have told TOI that they are taking the matter of encroachment on a per-case basis by conducting regular checks, with no fixed plan to tackle the issue.