If everything goes as planned, the city may soon get rid of its pothole-ridden roads. In a first, the Pune Municipal Corporation is planning to give aesthetic touch to the city roads. It has proposed to appoint a panel of urban designers who would given at least Rs 9 lakh per km for designing roads.

After inviting bids, the PMC received 11 applications for the work. But only four of it fulfilled the conditions set by the civic body.

"The idea behind roping in urban designers is to bring an aesthetic look to city roads that were till now developed haphazardly. This is the first time that the PMC would be using the service of urban designers," said Pramod Nirbhavane, additional city engineer.

He said so far the civic body has been focussing only on technical specifications to develop roads. "Aesthetics has never been given importance. The PMC decided to rope in urban designers on the basis of similar initiative taken in New Delhi and Ahmedabad," Nirbhavane said.

The designers would have to carry out surveys on land use, traffic, pedestrians, informal sector, street parking, landscape along with photographs while designing roads.

They will give an aesthetic look to roads by designing it with instructions on specific location for planting saplings, bus stops, benches for pedestrians. They would also design footpaths, activity places, and parking spots after a proper study of traffic on these roads. Nirbhavane said the islands on various junctions had to be removed for traffic management. Now the urban planners would come up with a solution to get back the islands on roads junctions, that would add beauty to the city, he said.

The civic body will pay Rs 9 lakh per km for roads less than 30-metre wide and Rs 10 lakh per km for roads that are wider. It will also pay Rs 60 per square metre for junctions or intersections that would be developed by the panel of urban designers.

"The rates are the lowest that administration got through the tender process," the additional city engineer said. The PMC will continue to develop roads by appointing consultants to ensure that technical norms are followed by contractors.