The Forest Trails township residents had held a silent demonstration in front of Paranjape Scheme Construction Ltd office (PSCL in short) on Prabhat Road on 6th January 2025, to bring out in open the sufferings and hardships they are facing after purchasing properties in the Private Township.
Soon thereafter, about 500 families signed a petition requesting PMRDA Commissioner to conduct a hearing for addressing the irregularities and illegalities perpetuated by PSCL – the Project Proponent of Township (PP in short) while developing the Forest Trails Township. The Hon’ble Commissioner, PMRDA conceding the request of residents held a formal hearing in his office on 21 st January 2025. Residents representing different constituent Housing Societies in the FT Township attended the hearing.
Mr. Uday Kulkarni, a resident of FT Township made an elaborate power point presentation at the hearing and cited documentary evidence regarding serious irregularities and breaches of conditions committed by the Project Proponent.
Mr. Kulkarni focused on several conditions imposed by the government agencies on the Project Proponent while granting the required clearances. The government approvals are subject to cancellation/ withdrawal if it is found that the approvals / clearances were obtained on the basis of false submissions or in case the breach of those conditions on the part of the PP.
Mr. Kulkarni presented documentary evidence to prove that the PP has knowingly made several false submissions and has submitted false affidavits and false compliance reports to the authorities. Thereby the PP has knowingly misled the authorities to obtain clearances required to develop and expand the Private Township Project.
Mr. Kulkarni stressed that the rules and notifications under which the permission and clearances were given, make it clear that the false submissions and /or breach of conditions imposed would render the permissions and clearances null and void.
The sole representative of the Project Proponent of the Private Township Forest Trails, who was summoned to be present at the PMRDA hearing had little to say in his defence except flat denials and empty assertions that all was well with the township.
At the end of the hearing, the Hon’ble Commissioner decided to conduct a detailed investigation in regard to the various complaints made by Mr. Kulkarni. The residents are waiting for the inspection of the Township.
The home buyers in the Forest Trails Private Town ship include many retired people. Attracted by the advertisements put out by the PP about the Township located in the periphery of Pune, they invested all their life’s savings to buy the property. They are now in for a rude shock. They are grappling with the situation which is causing them great distress.
While granting the permission to develop the Private Township on a land parcel of 100 acres or more in the outskirts of city area, the Government had given huge incentives, financial benefits and many other advantages to the PP.
In return, the PP, under the Township notification rules is mandatorily required to provide steady and uninterrupted power supply by giving land to MSEDCL to build a substation. The PP had agreed to this condition while obtaining the clearance. The Township was sanctioned in 2012. Several bungalows and high-rise buildings are already constructed. More than 4000 residents are already staying in the Township. However, even after 12 years, the land is not yet given to MSEDCL and substation is not provided. The end result is that the “Private Township” is on the village grid. There are frequent power outages almost every day lasting from few hours and they extend to few days in the rainy season. The residents of Township suffer daily. They have already spent in excess of rupees one crore towards generators, diesel costs, inverters, and batteries. While obtaining the permission to expand the Township PP had filed a false compliance report stating,” Power supply to the Township premises is uninterrupted and it is only during the monthly shutdowns when DG sets are used for supplying power.”
Under the Township notification rules the PP is mandatorily required to provide drinking water to the residents of the Township at a reasonable charge. Initially for first 2 years the PP provided the water at Rs.16/K ltr. After a couple of years, the rate was increased to Rs.36/K ltr and again after a few years it was increased to Rs.48.36/K ltr. Recently PP has raised this charge at an unconscionably high level of up to Rs.100/Kltr and more. The latest rate is variable and linked to the sq.ft area of the house. It is 4 to 10 times the charges levied by PMC/PCMC/Pvt Township Nanded City. PP also drastically reduced the water supply with a warning that it will be stopped completely in case residents do not pay at this exorbitant rate.
The bungalow residents were worst affected as the PP, in his drive to reduce his construction costs, has not provided any individual storage tanks for their bungalows. The bungalow Society is also not provided with any common storage tank. When the water supply was disrupted Sr citizens in the age group of 60 to 90 had to somehow collect and store water in buckets. It was not possible for them to receive the water from tankers in sufficient quantity as there is no storage facility provided for the bungalows.
Normal water supply was resumed by the PP only after about 250 families in the Township got together and lodged a police complaint.
Under the Township notification rules, the PP is required to provide gardens, parks and playgrounds in 20% of township total area of 190 acres. i.e. PP is required to provide 38 acres of gardens, parks, playground at his own cost, uniformly distributed in the Township for the use of Township residents. If you take a round of the Township, you will find that not even 3 acres of gardens, parks and playgrounds are provided till now. Due to the aggressive construction and sale of flats by the PP there is hardly any plain ground left for the gardens, parks, playgrounds with the regulating Authorities so far turning a blind eye to it.
Under the Township notification rules, the PP is required to provide a hospital in the initial stages of construction. After 12 years the Hospital is still not provided and instead a huge sales office was illegally constructed in area reserved for the Hospital.
The PP has made serious violations of the environmental regulations. In a multistory building, ironically named as “Comfort”, having one room tenements, PP did not provide the Sewage treatment plant mandatorily required under rules. The untreated sewage mixed with water is allowed to collect in one underground tank in direct violations of the environmental clearance condition. The tank gets filled up every month and the sewage mixed with water overflows causing serious health hazard to the occupants of the building. Due to low lying land, rain water used to collect in this area and the occupants had to wade through ankle deep water mixed with sewage to reach their tenements. Sometimes the sewage used to flow back in the bathrooms of ground floor tenements. As an emergency measure two residents of the neighboring CnC Society (Mr. Uday Kulkarni and Mr. Anant Bhide) spent their own money to provide relief by making arrangements to prevent rain water entering into the sewage tank and getting collected in front of the building. The problem of overflow of sewage still persists and PP has refused to do anything about it.
There are several such examples where the residents are made to feel helpless by the PP. The compensation, for delayed possessions, as per purchase agreement, amounting to lakhs of rupees has not been paid to the senior citizens of Athashri. They are told to go to the Court or file complaints to RERA.
(Enclosed herewith the table showing the false submissions/breach of conditions, the consequences that would ensue for such lapses as provided in the relevant regulations/ notifications/orders. A pen drive with scanned copies of relevant evidence is provided.)