E-Paper
No takers for flats in Pune’s flood-prone Ekta Nagari even as residents try to sell at low rates
Popular perception is that Ekta Nagari is located in the riverbed of the Mutha River. It has 20 to 25 buildings housing nearly 3,000 residents. Access to Ekta Nagari is from Sinhagad Road through Suncity Road (Santosh Hall Chowk)
As rain-induced flooding has become a recurrent theme every monsoon at Ekta Nagari on Sinhagad Road, a majority of the 3,000-odd residents staying in various housing societies in the area are now trying to sell off their flats/commercial properties with many willing to sell at lower-than-current market rates however there are hardly any takers for these properties.
Mangesh Jadhav, a resident of the area, said, “From the last more than 20 years, people are staying in these residential buildings at Ekta Nagari. Earlier when the area was under the Vadgaon Budruk Gram Panchayat (GP), constructions carried out at the time got all the necessary GP permissions. However in 2000 when it was included under the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), the area was changed from an ‘agriculture zone’ to a ‘residential zone’. And now due to the flooding every year, we have decided to sell our flats. Since the last two years, we are not getting any customers for the flats. Even when we quote low prices for the flats, people don’t want to come to this area.”
Popular perception is that Ekta Nagari is located in the riverbed of the Mutha River. It has 20 to 25 buildings housing nearly 3,000 residents. Access to Ekta Nagari is from Sinhagad Road through Suncity Road (Santosh Hall Chowk).
Mahesh Sathe, another resident, said, “The first thing which needs to be cleared is that this is a riverside area and not riverbed area which is the wrong perception. We have been living in fear for the last many years as every time it rains, the entire area gets inundated. In the last four to five years, many of the residents staying here have sold off their flats and shops.”
On August 3 this year, the Pune district administration relocated 125 people due to rising water levels on Sinhagad Road following the release of 36,000 cusecs of water from the Khadakwasla dam. Army personnel were deployed to handle the situation. In the wake of the flooding, chief minister Eknath Shinde, deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, and several other political leaders like Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray visited Ekta Nagari and interacted with the residents.
Atul Khode, owner of a real estate company at Sinhagad Road, said, “We are getting many inquiries from the residents of Ekta Nagari that they want to sell off their flats at low rates as they do not want to stay there anymore. But the problem is that no one is ready to buy those flats due to the flooding every year.”
