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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Ajit Pawar dreamt big for Baramati

Mumbai/Pune : Shunned as a dry and drought-prone sub-district of Pune on the Deccan Plateau barely five decades ago, Baramati today symbolizes one of Maharashtra’s most striking examples of systematic rural transformation with the lion’s share of credit going to the state’s numero uno Sharad Pawar clan.   The prime activity of farming thrives here, cooperatives flourish, industries are booming, education soars and the infrastructure is envied even by many developed urban centres.   Little...

Ajit Pawar dreamt big for Baramati

Mumbai/Pune : Shunned as a dry and drought-prone sub-district of Pune on the Deccan Plateau barely five decades ago, Baramati today symbolizes one of Maharashtra’s most striking examples of systematic rural transformation with the lion’s share of credit going to the state’s numero uno Sharad Pawar clan.   The prime activity of farming thrives here, cooperatives flourish, industries are booming, education soars and the infrastructure is envied even by many developed urban centres.   Little wonder that the Pune region ranks lowest in terms of farmers suicides – in 2024, there were only 24 deaths, as per official data, said Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti President Kishore Tiwari, who has chronicled distress in farmlands of the state for three decades.   “The Pawars ensured that the region got adequate funds, irrigation, power and other planned facilities that helped the farmers immensely… We wish all other districts in the state to emulate this example, especially Vidarbha which is regarded as the farmland suicides hotbed,” Tiwari told  The Perfect Voice .   Though the foundations of the sea-change was laid by Sharad Pawar, later it was his nephew Ajit Pawar who architected his uncle’s long-term vision to reality through untiring efforts, single-minded dedication and tough groundwork for over four decades to achieve what is the famed ‘Baramati Model’.   As several lakhs of mourners turned up from all over Western Maharashtra and other places to bid a final adieu to Ajit Pawar on Thursday (Jan. 29), many were seen weeping, crying and wailing, and some expressed concerns for the future of Baramati and Pune district – in the absence of their active ‘messiah’.   While Sharad Pawar laid the ground-map for Baramati, Ajit Pawar implemented it by ensuring that government policies, big and small projects and different schemes not only reached the region but tangibly changed the lives of the locals.   As he grew in politics and entered governance in various positions, Ajit Pawar quickly grasped how the official machinery worked, and along with his stern approach, fiscal and administrative discipline plus knowledge of his home turf, he kickstarted the evolution of Baramati and surroundings.   Way back in 2009, when he was not even a Deputy CM, Ajit Pawar told a group of visiting journalists from Mumbai his dreams of catapulting Baramati onto the world map in various aspects of a model of rural-led development and progress that touched each citizen.   For this, he persistently advocated the upgradation of the small Baramati Airport, built by the MIDC in 1996, having a short runway (1770 metres long x 30 metres wide), where his ill-fated aircraft crashed on Wednesday morning. The airport is mostly used for small aircraft operations and training purposes.   Former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan under whose tenure Ajit Pawar first became the Deputy CM, said that “he was a rare politician, a young visionary, dynamic and decisive, passionately pro-farmer and supportive of the cooperative sector”.   “When I was CM and he was the Deputy CM, he helped me take many tough decisions in the public interest. He was a sure-shot to lead the state (as CM), sooner than later. We have lost a great national-level leader whom coming generations would emulate,” Chavan told  The Perfect Voice , acknowledging Ajit Pawar’s contributions to the state.   Baramati Effect A local party activist, Milind Jadhav recalled how, when the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) founded by Sharad Pawar suffered a vertical split in July 2023, “every home and family in Baramati was splintered”.   “All the people were at a loss to decide whom to support in the ‘kaka-putnya’ political war, particularly during the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. Thankfully, the politics was strictly kept at bay from Baramati’s development and also the Pawar household, he said.   Despite the political wranglings, Ajit Pawar visited Baramati at least once a week, reviewed important proposals, funds and expenses, status reports and other minute details, at times, showing more insight than the officialdom, was a stickler for the ‘ghadi’ (watch), often jumped up for unannounced site visits that rattled the officials.   The Baramati Industrial Development Corporation – part of the MIDC – came into existence in 1962 under Sharad Pawar, but under Ajit Pawar it spread wings to come up as an ideal industrial zone. National and international companies like Kalyani Steels, Bharat Forge, Godfrey Phillips, SMT Ltd. Imsofer, Schreiber, Piaggio, Ferrero, Senvion, India's first wine factory at Narayangaon (1982), and later proliferated to Nashik.   Simultaneously, the western Maharashtra’s agriculture backbone of sugarcane, grapes, jowar, wheat and cotton support many of the top performer cooperatives in the region and the Baramati Hi-Tech Textile Park (established in 2008 through Sharad Pawar’s efforts), support domestic apparels industry creating jobs and prosperity.   Strong background support comes from institutions like Agriculture Development Trust, several agriculture colleges affiliated to major agriculture universities, all combining for activities like modern farming techniques, entrepreneurship, water conservation, women’s education and empowerment, health-care besides skill development and upgradation.

Choking Mumbai

For decades, Mumbai was perceived as a rare urban oasis, where the saline sweep of the Arabian Sea blunted the worst ravages of India's air pollution. That illusion has now been dispelled. A meticulous four-year study by Respirer Living Sciences (RLS), using data from its AtlasAQ platform, reveals the bleak truth that the city’s air is thick with pollutants all year round, with no ‘clean season’ left.


Mumbai’s annual average levels of PM10 (particulate matter ten microns or less in diameter) have consistently breached the national safety threshold of 60 micrograms per cubic metre (μg/m³). This is not merely a seasonal malaise tied to cooler winter months, as once assumed. Alarmingly, the city’s pollution levels persist even through the hot season, a time when improved atmospheric dispersion should offer natural reprieve.


Across the city - from Chakala in Andheri East to Deonar, Kurla, Vile Parle West and Mazgaon - pollution has become an unrelenting, ubiquitous presence.


The culprits are well known: traffic emissions from a burgeoning number of vehicles; unregulated dust from frenzied construction; industrial activity in and around the ports; and a conspicuous lack of dust control measures. Mumbai’s ceaseless growth now risks becoming a chronic liability.


Worryingly, the regulatory response remains sluggish. Mumbai’s urban planning continues to treat clean air as a peripheral concern, not a foundational necessity. Development plans rarely integrate environmental impact assessments in a meaningful way.


A sharper, citywide strategy is urgently needed. Dust suppression rules at construction sites must be enforced strictly, with financial penalties for violators and incentives for best practices. Traffic management systems should be overhauled to ease congestion and encourage the use of public transport. Expansion of clean, reliable mass transit network needs to be urgently prioritised. In addition, comprehensive real-time air monitoring at the ward level should be deployed, enabling authorities to respond to localised pollution spikes swiftly rather than relying on citywide averages that conceal dangerous hotspots.


Longer-term, clean air targets must be hardwired into the city’s master planning and transport policies. Green buffers along major traffic corridors, stricter emission norms for commercial vehicles and incentives for rooftop gardens and urban afforestation could all play a part. Industrial zones near port areas should be subjected to rigorous air quality compliance measures, not token self-certifications. Private developers and large infrastructure firms, often among the worst offenders, must be made stakeholders in the clean air mission through binding regulations.


Mumbai’s commercial dynamism - as a magnet for migrants, entrepreneurs and investors - depends not just on glittering skyscrapers but on something far more basic: the ability to breathe. Unless clean air becomes an unshakeable priority, the city risks suffocating its own future. For a metropolis that prides itself on its resilience against terror attacks, monsoon floods and economic shocks, the real test will be whether it can muster the will to fight an invisible, pervasive enemy slowly corroding the lives of its 20 million citizens.

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