In a presentation before the elected representatives, city engineer Prashant Waghmare explained the implementation of the existing development plan and the provisions made in the proposed development plan of the old part of the city.

He said the PMC in its existing DP in 1987 had proposed 609 reservations of land for public purpose of which 22 were deleted during 20 years of its implementation. "The PMC developed only 134 reservations while 453 reservations remain undeveloped," Waghmare said. But the situation was better compared to the implementation of DP prepared in 1966 when only 30 of the 459 reservations of public utility were developed.

Referring to various surveys conducted for preparing DP, he said change has been proposed in the extent of land use made available for various purpose. As per the existing land use, 20.48 per cent of land is under use for residential purpose and 31.93 per cent is proposed for residential use in the draft DP for the next 20 years.

The PMC has proposed 1.23 per cent for agriculture use as against 5.52 per cent that exists now. It kept 8.38 per cent land for forest and hills in the existing DP which will now be 7.85 per cent as per the draft DP.

To provide for the recreation needs of rising population, 6.87 per cent land is proposed for this purpose which is 3.89 per cent in the existing land use. The area of slums is 3.01 per cent and the administration has proposed 3.30 per cent of land for slum improvement. "Forty per cent of the population lives in mere 3.01 per cent land. Thus, there are efforts required to reduce this density," Waghmare said. The proposed land use shows decrease in land for water bodies and agriculture purpose.

The PMC has estimated the increase in growth rate of the city from 3.39 per cent in last five years to 3.56 per cent in next five years while it has estimated a sharp decline in growth rate to 2.85 from 2017-22 and 2.13 per cent in 2022-27. It expects that the population from 37 lakh in 2012 would reach to 57 lakh by 2027.

The housing study has revealed that the city requires 6.58 lakh tenements to meet the demand of increasing population. Economically weaker section leads in demand of houses which is expected to be 2.9 lah followed by middle income group with 1.72 lakh, lower income group with 1.32 lakh and 63,000 for high income group category.

In 2007, there was shortage of 90,000 new houses, 11,000 were dilapitated, 1.23 lakh were kucha houses and 76,000 slums, taking the total shortage to 3 lakh houses in 2007. There is expected to be an addition of 3.57 lakh of houses to the existing shortage and will increase the overall shortage to 6.58 lakh houses by 2027.