Nagpur: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation's Existing Land Use (ELU) exercise has exposed a massive urban planning failure in Maharashtra's second capital, revealing that only 15% of the 893 reservations proposed under city's Development Plan (DP)-2000 were implemented over the last 25 years.
While just 138 reservations were developed, 556 remain undeveloped, and another 199 reservations meant for public amenities were affected by encroachments and later regularised through Gunthewari layouts.
The findings, which will now form the base for preparation of Nagpur's revised Development Plan, have brought renewed focus on how the city's planning blueprint remained largely confined to paper for over a quarter of a century.
Officials associated with the exercise said a substantial number of reservations were either reduced, redesignated or deleted during the tenure of the Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT), which functioned as planning authority before powers were transferred to NMC. Several reserved plots were gradually merged into residential zones, while others lost land to unauthorised layouts, encroachments and piecemeal regularisation.
A closer scrutiny of the 138 reservations marked as "developed" reveals that most were limited to basic civic infrastructure. Of these, 51 were playground reservations, 24 primary schools, 11 secondary schools, eight community centres, six parking reservations, five parks and four market reservations. The remaining included police stations, stadiums, crematoriums, transport infrastructure, utility services and educational institutions.
Among the major projects developed on reserved land are Mankapur Indoor Stadium spread across nearly 11.88 hectares, Kalamna market expansion reservation covering around 58.5 hectares, Bhandewadi dumping yard over 36 hectares, Mor Bhavan bus stand reservation and Chinchbhuvan crematorium land.
However, ELU records also reveal how many reservations no longer serve their original planning purpose.
Several plots originally earmarked for playgrounds, gardens and public utilities were later converted into overhead water tanks, institutional structures, commercial complexes or mixed-use developments. In Pardi, a playground reservation was used for an overhead water tank while another was absorbed into a residential zone. In Dharampeth, a parking reservation now houses CBI and ISRO residential quarters. In Lendra, reservations linked to professional bodies were redesignated and eventually transformed into what is now Central Mall.
Similarly, reservations in areas such as Parsodi, Somalwada, Babulkheda, Chikhli, Bhamti and Manewada are now partly occupied by residential structures, community halls or commercial activity. Several ELU entries carry remarks such as "partly occupied", "remaining residential", "included in R-zone" and "reduced", indicating steady erosion of land originally reserved for public use.
Urban planners say the consequences of these planning failures are now visible across Nagpur in the form of shrinking open spaces, worsening traffic congestion, mounting pressure on civic infrastructure and unchecked urban expansion.
The situation was further aggravated by overlapping jurisdiction among agencies such as NMC, NIT, Smart City, MahaMetro and MADC, resulting in years of administrative confusion and implementation delays. Civic officials earlier acknowledged that reconciliation of legacy land records inherited from NIT significantly delayed completion of the ELU exercise.
The revised DP process has already come under scrutiny following allegations regarding deletion of nearly 186 public utility reservations, including plots meant for schools, gardens, parking spaces and civic amenities.
With the statutory deadline for finalisation of the revised Development Plan extended till May 31, 2026, planners warn Nagpur may be fast running out of time to protect whatever remains of its reserved public spaces before they disappear permanently under encroachments and uncontrolled urbanisation.
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