Ring road

Rohan Rao and Prachi Bari

In a meeting held in the city recently, chief minister, Mr.

Vilasrao Deshmukh, directed the officials’ for developing of
120 metres wide ring road for the city of Pune to solve the
ever-growing traffic woes. The Ring road would cost Rs 600
crore and will be a build operate Transfer project.

Pune is now often referred to as the 'Detroit of India' owing

to the fact that it serves home to major automobile
companies like Bajaj Auto, Tata Motors, Kinetic Engineering,
Force Motors and DaimlerChrysler. The famous brand,
Mercedes Benz India ltd. is also located at MIDC
Bhosari. However the infrastructure has not seen a
proportional development as the motor sector has seen. The
length and width of the roads have shown marginal
improvement even though the number of vehicles taking on
the city roads has increased exponentially.

Akshaya Kumar, CEO, Park Lane Property Advisor feels, "It

definitely will have a positive impact on the real estate
sector. Peripheral commuting will be improved. People can
move faster and efficiently to their destination. The
connectivity of Pune with Mumbai, Solapur and Ahmednagar
will also be improved in terms of freight services boosting
the commercial sector. People will be moving in to Pune
considering the ease of commuting as against the congested
locals of Mumbai. This will boost the already expanding
residential sector in the city."

According to Chandmal Parmar, managing trustee of Kum.

Rajashree Parmar Memorial Foundation, “Number of heavy
vehicles pass through the city at an average speed of 10
km/h. Karve Road, FC Road and Tilak Road are the worst
offenders as traffic moves here at a speed of 15 to 20 km/h,
according to the research by the C Parmar foundation. J M
Road, Dr Ambedkar Road and RBM Road are marginally
better with traffic moving at 25 to 30 km/h. (The average
traffic speed should be around 40 km/h.)

Mr. Abhijit Sarwade, a resident at Sinhagad road complains,

“I commute to Pimpri daily on my bike and the traffic jams
and hold ups in the city are really frustrating. Not only it
amounts to waste of valuable time, but also the kind of
stress one has to bear with it. This had lead to some
hindrances in recent past. However this move by the
government is a welcome one.”

Ring road is a road or series of roads within a city or town

that have been joined together by town planners to form an
orbital distributor style road. A ring road is an orbital
distributor road system designed from already existing roads
and implies a more inner city road designed to route traffic
around a city centre, as opposed to routing traffic around a
larger conurbation.

Shamkant Kotkar, Director, New Front Group, " Pune, if one

looks at its demographics is exactly in the center from all
sides. The ring road already exists partly on all the four sides
and if the proposal goes through, then it will be highly
favorable for the city, which boasts of highest number of
vehicular traffic. With the ring road, atleast 30 to 40 per cent
of the heavy vehicular traffic will be reduced and the roads
leading to the city can be well maintained. New villages
adding up closer to the Hinjewadi in the PCMC area will be in
demand and also open new approach roads which were not
there before the ring road. My only word of caution to the
government is that they plan for the next 25 years instead of
looking at five years and also should not let any
development happen close to the ring road. There should be
atleast 200 metres green belt on both sides of the ring road."
Since it involves expansion of already existing roads, the
inputs required would be less and the outputs will be
maximized. Three quarters of the project already stands
ready with development of the existing Dehu-Katraj bypass,
Katraj-Solapur road and Solapur-Ahmednagar road. These
three roads form a ring and encircle the city leaving only
Ahmednagar-Mumbai-Pune link to be developed. On
completion this will ensure an efficient diversion of traffic.

The ring road will facilitate by connecting the peripherals

with the city and will serve as a bypass for heavy vehicles.
This also ensures that heavy vehicles and trucks don't have
to ply on the inner circuits, thus ensuring smooth traffic flow.
This will also ensure to lessen the pollution within the cities
and provide relief to buffer zones like schools and hospitals,
which are at present bearing heavy vehicular decibels.

Kishore Wani, director, Amit Enterprises, "The ring road will

bring about a complete transformation for the Pune city.
Look at how the areas have changed ever since we got the
expressway from Mumbai to Bangalore, it has highlighted
those areas like Katraj, Ambegaon, Hinjewadi, which people
would never even consider as residential areas. Besides this
ring road is already going to be 120 metres wide and this will
help relieve the excess heavy traffic into the city, which will
be beneficial. Also the fact that now the focus will be more
on Hinjewadi and Kharadi as IT destinations will also give rise
to many more better services and amenities in the vicinity of
these main areas. Areas like Punawale, Kiwale in PCMC, while
Katraj, ambegaon in PMC and towards the north Wagholi and
Undri Pisoli will become preferred destinations."

Sanjay Mirchandani, MD, Mirchandani Group feels that the

ring road will be a boon for every one looking at outskirts as
their residences. "The ring road will be like a Midas touch
and where ever it passes through will turn to gold in terms of
real estate. The roads like the Kondwa to Pimpri road, which
was supposed to be the High Capacity Mass Transit road, if
added to the ring road, then it would ease all the traffic
coming inside the city.
Besides the ring road will give rise to suburbs that should
solely look at residential phases while commercial space
should be in the city, which would also create a balance and
let every one have a good breathing space. With the roads
getting better after the ring road and less vehicular traffic
entering inside the city, people wont mind travelling huge
distances from home to office. i e. from suburbs to
downtown like in foreign countries."

Jayant Kaneria, MD, Mont Verte, " The ring road is partly
ready and is already part of the city for if one sees the
development along side the Expressway, it means that the
ring road is inside the city limits already. The government
needs to plan for the next decade or the next 10 years or
else the ring road will become a local city route. If you are a
regular traveler to Hinjewadi in the morning peak hours,
what you are greeted with is a big mess of vehicular traffic
on the junction of the Expressway. What the government
needs to realize is that they may need more flyovers and
goods service roads to keep the ring road free of the traffic
traveling towards the city. For the real estate, the ring road is
a natural boom for it will open up new areas like Mahlunge,
Bhavdhan, Bhugaon, Ravet and Punawale for mega
townships."

The project implementation and its execution is eagerly

awaited by the commuters and business persons, for it will
ensure a smoother and faster transportation and further
prop the city’s image as the next real estate destination.