Pune: PMC Sets Up ‘Special 26’ Cell To Prepare Development Plan For 23 Merged Villages
Pune: PMC Sets Up ‘Special 26’ Cell To Prepare Development Plan For 23 Merged Villages
Pune, July 4, 2026: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has begun the process of preparing a fresh Development Plan (DP) for the 23 villages merged into its limits by establishing a dedicated 26-member “Special 26” Development Plan Cell. The move follows the PMC General Body’s approval to prepare the DP after the Maharashtra government scrapped the earlier plan prepared by the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA).
The Maharashtra government had merged 23 villages on Pune’s outskirts into the PMC limits in June 2021. However, instead of assigning the responsibility of preparing the Development Plan to the civic body, the state had designated PMRDA as the planning authority.
The PMRDA’s draft Development Plan later attracted criticism and several complaints, with allegations that it proposed converting agricultural land into residential zones, introduced questionable reservations at select locations, and favoured large developers. Following a change in government in 2022, multiple complaints were submitted to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who subsequently ordered the cancellation of the PMRDA-prepared Development Plan.
With the PMRDA plan scrapped, the state government entrusted PMC with preparing a fresh Development Plan for the merged villages. The PMC General Body recently approved the proposal to declare its intention to prepare the DP and appointed City Engineer Aniruddha Pawaskar as the Town Planning Officer for the project.
Following the approval, the civic administration has established a dedicated Development Plan Cell under Executive Engineer Dinesh Girolla. The team comprises five Deputy Engineers, six Branch Engineers, one Junior Engineer, four Draftsmen, two Architectural Draftsmen, three Typists, and four support staff, all assigned full-time to the project.
PMC will soon officially declare its intention to prepare the Development Plan through newspaper notifications and publication in the Government Gazette, after which the planning process will formally commence. Additional Municipal Commissioner Prajit Nair has issued the necessary administrative orders for the establishment of the cell.
Under statutory provisions, the civic body has up to two years to prepare the draft Development Plan. However, officials believe the process is likely to be completed much sooner since substantial groundwork was already undertaken during the earlier PMRDA exercise, allowing the corporation to utilise existing planning data while preparing the revised Development Plan.
