Rural Development Minister Jayant Patil's proposal to change reservation from residential to green space leaves members of proposed society fuming as they say their dreams will be shattered after 20-year wait

Au00a0prime location on the Pashan-Baner Link Road has become a bone of contention between the landowners and a minister who wants to make it a non-residential plot by reserving it as a green space. The plot owners are now planning to go on a hunger strike over the issue.

Even after the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) rejected a proposal by the Rural Development Minister Jayant Patil to reserve a residential plot of land for a garden and a playground, the minister has jumped the gun and passed on the file to the Urban Development Department.

The landowners have now sent a letter of grievance to the Chief Minister.

The fate of 29 people now hangs in the balance with the minister's proposal also awaiting the approval of the Chief Minister.

S N Patil, A D Kambli, A G Deshkumh and V R Kharche are some of the landowners who jointly purchased the five-acre plot in question two decades ago.

These members of the proposed Vasant Vihar Society have threatened to go on a hunger strike if their plot is taken over to lay a garden and a playground.

The intervention of politicians when it comes to land reservation in the city has been exposed by MiD DAY before. Former chief minister Ashok Chavan had lifted the reservation on a plot kept for a garden to allegedly favour builders in Shukrawar Peth.

And now the Rural Development Minister is taking an interest in reserving land for garden and playground in Pashan, where many high-profile people own bungalows. The land in question was purchased at Rs 28 per square feet but the rate has now gone up to over Rs 2,000.

Members of the proposed Vasant Vihar Society now worry that putting a reservation on the land might be just a tool to grab their land.

"All of us have put our life's earnings in the land and dream of living here some day," said S N Patil, chief of the proposed Vasant Vihar Society.

All the 29 members of the society are retired government officers who had purchased the land 20 years ago.

Earlier, the land was under brick kiln reservation, which was later converted to a residential one by the PMC.

The Gunthewari Act also took another five years and now the minister has put a reservation on the land.

"This political intervention has made us landless and our dreams to have our own bungalows is shattered," said Patil. "Five of our colleague in the society died recently, without seeing their dreams fulfilled."

A G Deskmukh said the society members had a feeling the minister was changing the reservation on the plot because a powerful local businessman wanted it done.

"What is the interest of the minister in placing such a reservation on the plot even without discussing it with the landowners?" said Deshmukh. "We have heard that the minister is putting the reservation on the land because it is the wish of a local businessman. Otherwise there is no logic or rationale for a minister who is from Sangli district to be interested in a piece of land in Pune."

Society member Kambli said they had tried every means, including using the Right to Information (RTI) Act, to get an official reason for the change in reservation.

"We had filed an RTI application and tried to get the actual letter of the minister sent to the Urban Development Department to change the reservation," he said.

"We tried to dig out information on why the minister had taken this decision to put a reservation when the reservation for a garden that was there in 1992 was lifted by the PMC and converted to one of brick kiln and later even that was changed to make it a residential zone," he added.u00a0