Pune: About 90 per cent of pending construction projects will gain momentum in the city as the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has relaxed the norms of 'No Objection Certificate' (NOC) from them or Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) regarding the height restrictions in areas surrounding the defence airports of Lohegaon and National Defence Academy (NDA).
The notification in this regard was issued by the Indian Air Force (IAF) recently. Lately, Member of Parliament Girish Bapat and Supriya Sule had urged the MoD to consider the errors in the colour coded maps prepared by the IAF and revise the notification regarding it.
Pune city is a strategic location for the Defence ministry as there are two defence airports in the city and three cantonment areas along with several ammunition and explosive factories located in the city. Considering the security of the defence airports, a restriction of height for constructing buildings around the airport for a stretch of six to eighteen kilometres on both sides of the airstrip was introduced. This was called the Red Zone and it almost covered 80 to 90 per cent of the construction projects going on in the city.
As a result, all construction projects needed a No Objection Certificate from the MoD to get their project plans approved by the PMC. This NOC process was time-consuming as MoD has to entertain applications from all over the country. This was proving to be a major hurdle in the development of the city including some projects of the PMC itself.
PMC officials had conveyed to MoD officials that there were certain errors in the colour coded maps prepared by the IAF. Defence officials had asked PMC to send revised maps which would be scrutinised by the MoD. These revised maps were recently approved by the MoD officials. Since the height restrictions have been relaxed, now any project which has buildings with height lesser than the restricted height, it would not require any NOC from the MoD.
