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.