| City of Magarpatta, Pune Magarpatta Township |
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|---|---|
| — Neighbourhood / City — | |
| Magarpatta City Tower 11 and 12 as seen from Aditi Gardens with Deccan Harvest in front. | |
| Nickname(s): "The Pride of Pune" | |
| Coordinates: |
Magarpatta is a self-contained residential cum Industrial / Corporate settlement spanning over 400 Acres of land. It is situated along the Pune-Solapur Highway in Hadapsar, Pune, Maharashtra, India. Magarpatta has been in the news for its novel approach to development of housing projects in India. Its award winning design and eco friendly construction made it the first such settlement in India to receive the ISO 9001 Certification. Today, Magarpatta houses the Indian branches of some of various IT/ITES corporates such as Accenture, Amdocs, Avaya, Capita, EDS, Mphasis, Patni and Sybase. It also has offices of consulting firms like Dar Al-Handasah and outsourcing services firms like EXL.
Magarpatta City however continues to suffer from stench coming from Hadapsar Industrial Estate and Hadapsar Garbage Processing center. Stench is quite strong in the evening in areas around Iris, Jasminium and Mulberry Gardens.
Magarpatta City initiated proceeses towards private development of 'Integrated Township' at sucha a scale, in the country. The success of its development was instrumental in the State Govt. of Maharashtra incorporating a key legislation, called the Special Township Notification of 2006, part of the Maharashtra Regional & Town Planning Act of 1976, based on which many integrated township projects in Pune such as Amanora Park City, Blue Ridge and Megapolis have taken form. Magarpatta City based its innovative land-pooling methods into a path-breaking model, presently referred to as the Magarpatta Model, in which farmers together converted their cultivable land into a corporate enterprise.
The masterplanning and architectural development of Magarpatta City was undertaken by Associated Space Designers Pvt. Ltd, Pune, under the stewardship of Ar. Prakash Deshmukh.
Situated on the eastern side of Pune, Magarpatta is in close proximity to the Kharadi IT Park, EON IT Park, Kalyani Nagar, Koregaon Park, Fatimanagar and the Hadapsar Industrial Estate.
Magarpatta has also been featured in the Discovery Channel and has been the backdrop of many Indian movies including the blockbuster Sivaji, Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, Aitraaz and the TV commercial for Suzuki Swift brand of cars, the TVS Motors brand of motorcycles,the TVS Motors Wego brand of scooters, the Mahindra brand of motorcycles featuring Aamir Khan and the TATA DoCoMo Commercial. Parts of the film Knock Out were also shot in Magarpatta City.
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Long before India woke up to the violent protests against 'forced' land acquisitions for Special Economic Zones (SEZs), a small group of farmers on the fringes of Pune decided to act before the process of globalisation and development swallowed up their ancestral farms.
The land they tilled has been under the Pune municipal jurisdiction since 1960, though it was still an agricultural zone. But in 1982, the Pune Municipal Corporation marked it as a 'future urbanisable zone' in its draft development plan, which meant that the government could easily acquire the land under the Urban Land Ceiling Act.
The Magar clan and their immediate neighbours, comprising 123 families that trace their ancestry back three centuries, had through the 1960s and '70s clung together to oppose the municipal administration's plan to urbanise their land. They were content with the steady income afforded by the sugarcane harvests, though some farmers in the neighbourhood, lured by the quick buck, had sold their lands to real estate developers.
By the late-'80s, the Magars realised that the city, already bursting at the seams, would eventually claim their land for infrastructure development. "It finally dawned on us that we were fighting a losing battle against rapid urbanization, and this meant we had to act soon," said Babasaheb Magar, a senior member of the clan.
The Magars decided that they would develop the land themselves. The fact that they knew nothing about land development and had little money did not deter them.
As the name 'Magarpatta' suggests, the Magar clan dominated, owning 40% of the total land or the largest patta (land strip) located next to the Hadapsar Industrial Estate. A young entrepreneur Satish Magar owned around 100 acres (40 ha) of land. Otherwise the average landholding per family was between 2 and 4 acres (2 ha). More than 90% of the farmers were Marathas while a few were from the Mali and Sonar communities.
Together they managed to pool together 400 acres (162 ha) before requesting architect Hafeez Contractor to draft a private township plan, which was submitted to the concerned departments of the state administration for approval. Amid great apprehension, the families applied for conversion of the entire stretch into a non-agricultural zone.
A new government came to power in Maharashtra in 1995, while the idea was still at a very nascent stage. Seeking government approval proved an uphill task as applications and files moved from one department to another at a snail's pace. At subsequent informal meetings, the families began expressing concern over livelihoods as they had known only farming till then.
But they trusted Mr Satish Magar, the nephew of an enterprising local political heavyweight named Annasaheb Magar, who was instrumental in establishing the twin industrial township of Pimpri-Chinchwad in the 1960s. Pimpri-Chinchwad is now bustling with industrial activity and is one of the country's richest municipalities. Magarpatta, Satish thought, was going to be a re-enactment of Pimpri-Chinchwad, but with a focus on new-age industries like software and business process outsourcing.
Satish mooted the idea of a company rather than a cooperative so that each family got shares equal to the size of their landholding. The company was registered as the Magarpatta Township Development and Construction Company Limited; Satish became its managing director.
The Magarpatta Township Development and Construction Company has recently embarked on a project to create yet another such "mini-township". Its called the "Nanded City" project which is currently under development near Khadakvasala.
Present day Magarpatta City consists of 3 primary real estate entities listed below:
other than the above mentioned entities, Magarpatta also has a large circular garden named "Aditi Gardens" which lies in the geometric centre of the Cybercity circle. Magarpatta has two schools (primary to senior secondary) of which one is under construction and one fully functional. The "Noble Hospital" also comes directly under the Magarpatta umbrella association.
All residential neighborhoods in Magarpatta have been named after various Flora found the world over. The general construction pattern of each residential neighborhood is to have multistory apartments numbered alphabetically with floors numbered Following are the list of residential projects (inclusive of planned, in progress or completed)
Of the above neighborhoods, Acacia Gardens and Mulberry Gardens comprise individually designed bungalows only.
Mega Center is the oldest of all commercial projects in Magarpatta. It houses the office of some of the most prominent local builders and logistics providers. Until late 2007, Amdocs Business Support had its infrastructure setup in the Mega Center.The Destination center is relatively new and houses the Magarpatta Sales and Property Management Services (PMS) office. It also houses the branches of HDFC and ICICI Bank. The Magarpatta City Mall is an upcoming project that would house many national and international brands and retail chains. The mall is currently under construction.