Still Born City?

The future of Lavasa, dream project of NCP strongman Sharad Pawar, looks bleak after its status as special planning authority is revoked

- Kiran D. Tare

The Maharashtra government’s announcement on May 23, revoking the special planning authority (SPA) status for Lavasa, could have been passed off as just another policy diktat—but for the protagonists involved.

Lavasa, an under-construction hill city near Pune, was originally visualised by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) strongman Sharad Pawar. His son-in-law, Sadanand Sule, even owned a 12.7 per cent stake in the project until 2007. The history of the project, though, goes back to the early 2000s. As the story goes, while being flown from Mumbai to Pune in a helicopter, Pawar spotted a large tract of vacant land in the Mulshi valley area of the Sahyadri mountain range in Maharashtra. Thinking of it as an ideal spot to plant a new, model city (as conceived by his friend, Aniruddha Deshpande), Pawar took the proposal to realty baron Ajit Gulabchand and his company, HCC. Gulabchand is an old friend of Pawar’s, and Lavasa City Corporation (LCC), the firm responsible for the city’s construction, is part of HCC’s real estate wing.

In 2001, the Maharashtra government sanctioned 10,000 acres of land for the construction of this modern city, which would be spread over 20 villages and hamlets. The first phase of construction, Dasve, on 1,700 acres, began in 2005 and has been completed. Work on the second phase, Mugaon, is stalled because of regulatory issues.