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Narrow road to Pune IT park prolongs techies' commutes

Pune - The Hinjewadi IT park is one of the largest in India and along with a few other software hubs (including Magarpatta) in Pune, accounts for about $10 billion in exports every year.

The sprawling 2,500-acre Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park at Hinjewadi here symbolises everything that is wrong with urban planning in India.
With nearly a quarter million employees working at the IT park, commuting to this facility is a nightmarish experience, as the state agency that developed it - the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) - failed to plan for wider access roads.
Employees and visitors can approach the IT park from only one narrow road near National Highway 4, the busy Pune-Bengaluru highway. During the morning and evening peak hours, traffic crawls at a painfully slow pace, and many IT professionals end up spending three to four hours daily commuting to and from their homes, located within a distance of 10 to 15km from their offices.
A badly designed flyover was constructed a few years ago, which instead of providing relief, has only added to the congestion. Ramchandra Gohad, a leading town planner and architect, told Khaleej Times that MIDC lacked the vision and did not plan for such a huge facility. "They never developed a network of approach roads to the park, but kept expanding it," he points out. "And since most of the IT professionals earn good salaries, most of them drive to work in their cars every day. Public transport has been grossly neglected."
The Hinjewadi IT park has seen five phases of expansion, yet it is serviced by just one road. The state government has also been selling land to educational institutions, hotels and real estate developers. Besides the 250,000 employees working at 2,000 IT firms - which include all the top Indian and international firms such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Tata Technologies, Honeywell, Persistent Systems, Emerson Innovation Center and IBM - there are hundreds of thousands of other residents, students and visitors transiting through the IT park.
The Hinjewadi IT park is one of the largest in India and along with a few other software hubs (including Magarpatta) in Pune, accounts for about $10 billion in exports every year.
Yet, despite the significant role it plays in the country's economy, the state government has failed to invest in the transport infrastructure in the park.
The Hinjewadi Industries Association (HIA) has been urging the government and the local civic bodies to improve the facilities, but their pleas have fallen on deaf years.
Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who was in the US recently to woo investors to the state, is now planning to tackle the infrastructural challenges at Hinjewadi.
Prashant Inamdar of Pedestrians First, an NGO, has urged Fadnavis to get the proposed Pune Metro route realigned by including Hinjewadi in the network. Many other activists are also calling for a revised detailed project report and to add key sectors including Hinjewadi-Shivajinagar in a proposed underground metro route.
IT company representatives recall that a few years ago even Bengaluru suffered the same fate, with IT professionals having to spend hours while commuting.
As many companies began to relocate to other parts of India, the local authorities built an elevated corridor and other roads to the Electronic City and other software parks, easing travel conditions.

• India