The cost would be billions of dollars. The company declined to provide a full estimate. Lavasa Corporation Ltd. Arguably even worse off than current residents are the thousands of people who have put down their life savings or borrowed money to buy property in Lavasa, only to fear it may never get built.
Generally abandoned is the original plan of developing five towns with theme parks, school campuses, sports complexes and research centres in the scenic hills of the Western Ghats, a Unesco world heritage site known for its evergreen tropical forests that shelter species of vulnerable or endangered animals, birds and fauna.
The first and only town to be built—Dasve—is littered with concrete skeletons. Lavasa is a typical example of a large-scale infrastructure project gone bad, saddling its bankers with unpaid dues that are helping drive record losses at many Indian lenders. Lavasa defaulted on dues payable to bondholders and has delayed repayment to other creditors including banks, the company said in a May 3 filing.
The Reserve Bank of India in February scrapped various restructuring programs that had kept Lavasa on life support. Now the unit of his Hindustan Construction Ltd. Neglect has taken the Mediterranean sheen off once-bright red and yellow buildings.
The cobblestone streets and stone bridges are growing moss. Sidewalks are crumbling in places. Curious tourists and locals looking for a break from city life once flocked to the streets of Dasve, but now they now look deserted.
Many restaurants and coffee shops on the promenade facing the lake have shut. The number of visitors has dropped in the past two years, said Mukesh Kumar, a general manager at the Waterfront Shaw, a apartment hotel. Erstwhile Mumbaities, David Cooper and his wife, Zerin, are worried though about the rapidly thinning security staff and recent break-ins.
Its unique selling point is its waterfront, provided by the backwaters of Warasgaon dam on the River Mose. Reason: the company had failed to obtain environmental clearance from the Union ministry. At the same time the ministry also recommended permission be given to complete the semi-finished buildings being built as villas and apartments. It clarified that structures that did not reach plinth level, should not be allowed.
The petition named environment minister Jairam Ramesh and two ministry officials in person. LCL later applied for post facto clearance from MoEF for the first phase of the project, on February 1; Lavasa is being developed in two phases of 2, ha and 3, ha.
While seeking clearance from the ministry, the company argued it has already spent about Rs 3, crore on the project and investors have gained third party rights in the city. The project has brought employment and development to a neglected area, LCL said. Stone quarrying has dried water sources of villages Photo: Arnab Pratim Dutta EAC said it was ready to consider post facto clearance on certain conditions, which include a penalty for violating laws and creation of an environment restoration fund by the company.
EAC observed that substantial development has already taken place in about ha. At the time of issuing show cause notice on November 25, MoEF had asked the company why the unauthorised structures should not be removed. The company did not apply to the Centre though the Environmental Impact Assessment EIA notification of mandated clearance from MoEF for tourism-related projects between m and m of high tide line and for projects at an elevation of more than 1,m from sea level, involving investment of over Rs 5 crore.
Since 58 ha of Lavasa city is above 1,m height and the project cost more than Rs 5 crore, LCL ought to have applied to the Centre for clearance. In July , MoEF had written to the Maharashtra environment department saying the project attracts provisions of EIA notification and asked it to ensure all clearance processes are followed.
The member secretary of the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board replied that the project did not require clearance from the Centre because it was at a height below 1,m. The letter said EIA notification of did not apply to the project as all constructions were between m and m altitude. But in its affidavit in the high court, the developer claimed otherwise.
The company claimed the amended EIA notification of , too, did not apply to the project. But the documents submitted by LCL to the ministry show the company obtained the first permission for construction only in August The developer also ignored the provisions of the EIA notification of , which supersedes the previous two notifications.
The notification says all townships and area development projects, covering an area of over 50 ha, commenced or upgraded after September , need environmental clearance from the respective state EIA authorities.
This proposal was too late and by then the environment had been damaged, as MoEF notes in its order dated January The damage report The site inspection of MoEF notes that the company has resorted to large scale hill-cutting to extract construction material and for making roads.
This has rendered the hills barren. The Pune collector had granted LCL lease to quarry minor minerals like stones. Lavasa, in its submissions to the ministry, said using locally available construction material was more ecofriendly than transporting it to site.
People living in the area disagree. The blasting of hillsides for quarrying stone has spoilt their water sources. Planning norms violated Lavasa has also flouted state rules. Its plan does not conform to the procedures in the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act of , which include inviting public objections and obtaining approval from the state government. This bestowed LCL powers to sanction its own plans. Once the developer acquired the powers of a planning authority, it modified the layout plans.
The hill station regulations do not allow construction on steep slopes. This made LCL shift most of the development in the valley. The original hill station policy permits only two storey buildings; Lavasa structures have six storeys. This was achieved by transferring the floor space index FSI of the buildings that would have come up on the slopes to the buildings in the valley.
Another major planning violation is that the buildings are almost touching the water body; the state government had permitted LCL to construct at a distance of 50m from the reservoir which was reduced to 30m and then 15m. At site, the concrete pavement almost touches the reservoir. The developer allegedly reclaimed land from the reservoir bank.
The Maharashtra Krishna Valley Development Corporation, the water resource department of the state, had leased LCL used a portion of the leased land which was above the submergence zone to construct commercial and residential buildings.
Residential: Laws changed to allow construction on steep slopes. Commercial: Laws changed to allow mixed land use—commercial and residential—in the town centre. Buildings and roads close to the water body, at 5 to 15 metre distance. Biomedical waste to be transported but no studies done on its impact. Eight check dams are being constructed by LCL upstream of Warasgaon dam to store water for the project.
Two dams are already constructed in the water body; the remaining six are to be built in the catchment of the dam. These eight dams will store MoEF fears the checkdams will reduce the flow of water in the main reservoir. The Warasgaon dam contributes to the Khadakwasla dam which provides drinking water to Pune.
LCL claims the water requirement of Lavasa is minuscule compared to the water requirement of Pune. The current requirement of water for Pune is about MCM. It is an ambitious, and deeply controversial , project to build an entire private city from scratch. The name Lavasa is the invention of a US branding firm, having no meaning, but meant to conjure up images of mystery and exoticism with its abstract poeticism and hint at Hindi.
For ambitious property developers, the city-building game is a potentially big profit-making opportunity. The success of Lavasa as a model will have a big impact on how the process of rapid urbanisation in India, and further afield, plays out.
Working behind the counter is Sakrita Koshti, originally from Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujurat state. Koshti, 22, says she works nine-hour shifts seven days a week — out of choice. She saves her days off so every two months she can get a week back home with her family. If I get married and have children, they cannot get settled here in Lavasa. Lavasa is supposed to be modelled on principles of New Urbanism, the urban design movement that promotes walkable communities with much of the land set aside for green and open space.
With the American diner and a nod to Europe, it is clear that the planners are trying to create Lavasa as far as possible from traditional Indian cities, in name, style and architecture. The concrete innards and steel girders of various buildings to be finished at some time in the future, added to the lack of humans in the streets, give the place a strange ghost town atmosphere.
Portofino Street follows the edge of a serene man-made lake at the centre of Dasve. Along the waterfront, a grand glass-fronted building houses the Lavasa Information Centre.
The building is completely empty but it is full of corporate-speak. Climbing up to the fourth floor, there are numerous rooms that have been left to decay, some full of junk, other with walls held together with Sellotape and walls left unpainted. Electrical fittings hang loose from the walls, wires are strewn across the floor. In some places the ceiling has huge damp marks across it.
Everything inside Lavasa — apart from the post office and police station — is run by a corporation.
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