Pune Municipal Corporation

The Long-Lasting Legacy of Bhide Wada, Where the Phules Set Up Their First School

Bystanders who were oblivious to its historical significance may have thought of Bhide Wada as just another dilapidated building, but it set the tone for new voices of cultural expression.

On December 5, 2023, Bhide Wada, an old, dilapidated historic building located at 257 Budhwar Peth in Pune City, was demolished by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). The structure housed the first indigenous girls’ school of modern India, established by Savitribai and Jyotirao Phule in 1848. The state government plans to set up a national memorial on this site to commemorate the Phule couple’s significant contribution to modern India.

For decades before its demolition, Bhide Wada stood as a modest and self-effacing structure to onlookers and people in the bustling neighbourhood. Bystanders who were oblivious to its historical significance may have thought of it as just another dilapidated building in the pool of many such structures in the neighbourhood that required immediate repair and renovation.

A few years ago, the PMC identified this building as “dangerous and unsafe” for everyday use. Irrespective of its introverted and unassuming appearance from the outside, Bhide Wada represented a significant chapter in the history of modern India. Even after the closure of the school founded by Jyotirao Phule, Bhide Wada was an important centre of public activism in the 19th and 20th centuries. It frequently attracted prominent public figures, including Mahadev Govind Ranade and Dayanand Saraswati. Bhide Wada was a site that changed the lives of Savitribai and Jyotirao forever to become leading crusaders of equality and public education. Therefore, Bhide Wada cannot be simply forgotten as a monument of a bygone era, as it instrumentally paved the way for new political and cultural articulations in modern India. In a society that is overwhelmingly dominated by the practices of caste prejudices, caste discrimination and caste-based violence, Bhide Wada is a monument of alternative expression.

Bhide Wada, owned by the Bhide family, was constructed in a thriving business district of Budhwar Peth when the Peshwas ruled Pune before their eventual defeat in 1818. Wada (cottage)-like structures, constructed in different Peths or localities, became a familiar sight across the city in the 18th and 19th centuries. One of the members of the Bhide family, Tatyasaheb Bhide, a strong sympathiser and a friend of Jotirao Phule, wanted to help him set up a school. He was impressed by the latter’s passion and gave two rooms of his family cottage for the school premises.

The establishment of this school irked many traditionalists and deeply distressed Savitribai, Jyotirao, and their supporters. Here, Savitribai rose to the occasion and played a pivotal role that changed the course of women’s educational activism in modern India. She was initially educated by Jyotirao and later completed teacher training courses to become a teacher and headmistress of the school located at Bhide Wada.

Although the Bhide Wada school was a short-lived experiment, it created a long-lasting legacy. With time, the Phule couple established more than 18 schools across Pune. Savitribai and Jyotirao Phule became leading voices of radical anti-caste activism. Satyashodhak Samaj, founded by Jyotirao, was actively involved in voicing the grievances of the peasants, women, non-Brahmins, and the untouchables. Before launching the Satyashodhak Samaj in 1873, Phule established himself as one of the most potent critics of social conservatism and religious nationalism in Western India. Therefore, to understand the import of Phule’s activism and his radical stance against caste and patriarchy, the history of Bhide Wada cannot be forgotten. It set the tone for new voices of cultural expression that also foregrounded a new language of politics in modern Maharashtra.

Busts of Mahatma Jyotirao Phule and Savitribai Phule. Photo: Priyanka bhise/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Over time, the ownership of the 2,500 sq ft Bhide Wada changed from one owner to the other in the 20th century. We find a reference to the sale deed of 1924 that mentioned the transfer of the land from Sadashiv Narayan Bhide to the Mavadikar family. Subsequently, Bhide Wada was sold in two phases to Pune-based Poune Merchants Co-operative Bank in 1969 and 1972. In 2000, the bank requested a real estate firm to redevelop the property. After substantial redevelopment, the work was halted by a stay order in 2005.

The interesting aspect of this entire chronicle of Bhide Wada is how some historical sites associated with Dalit-OBC assertions have been conveniently forgotten in post-independence India. It took more than 50 years after independence for the state institutions to recognise the importance of Bhide Wada. In 2006, after continuous demands from different quarters across Maharashtra, the PMC and the state government finally proposed a plan to set up a national monument to commemorate the contributions of the Phule couple. After 13 years of protracted legal battle with its occupants, the site was finally handed over to the PMC through the Supreme Court’s intervention in November 2023.

That monuments like Bhide Wada are ignored highlights how histories of anti-caste and Dalit-Bahujan politics are still rendered unacceptable to mainstream frameworks. The Dalit-Bahujan attempts at memorialisation are often ridiculed and treated as manifestations of emotional and irrational deifications. It is no coincidence that until 1990, there was no portrait of Ambedkar in the central hall of the parliament. Simultaneously, it was only after continuous campaigns conducted across Maharashtra from the 1980s onwards that the historical sites associated with Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule were converted into protected monuments. On the other hand, unlike Bhide Wada, Ambedkar’s monuments in Maharashtra seldom depend on state patronage and support. Monuments like Chaitya Bhoomi and Deekshabhoomi have become significant sites of assertion that help the erstwhile untouchables navigate beyond stigma and humiliation. Therefore, the memorialisation of the monuments associated with the anti-caste movement is essential for Dalit and OBC movements to steer through dominant interpretations of culture. Creating such sites of memorialisation also helps democratise the overall political and cultural ambience.

Therefore, the monuments like Bhide Wada are not just physical structures. They can pose a real challenge to the dominant forms of power. On the contrary, if Bhide Wada becomes a temple of deification of Savitribai and Jyotirao, it will generate counterproductive results. In the new context, whatever affirmative feelings it evokes, there is a greater risk of such sites becoming banal and apolitical locations of identity creation.

Prabodhan Pol teaches at Manipal Centre for Humanities MAHE, Manipal (Karnataka).

Why Pune’s Citizens Are up in Arms About a Riverfront Development Project

Along with eating into the riverine vegetation along the Mula-Mutha river, the riverfront development project that aims to address flooding and make the river more ‘accessible’ to people will not really do so, say activists.

Kochi: On April 29, more than 2,000 citizens hugged trees along the banks of the Mula-Mutha river that flows through the city of Pune in Maharashtra.

The citizens replicated the Chipko movement to protest against the Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) riverfront development project that will require more than 3,000 trees along the nearly 11-kilometre stretch of the river to be cut.

The project has other flaws, too. The project proposes to build embankments in the riverbed that will destroy the riverine ecosystem in the area, said ecologists.

It will also not help with flood control, according to architects. In fact, the construction of the embankments in the riverbed will reduce its water carrying capacity and make nearby areas more prone to floods, they said.

However, a PMC official claimed that the embankments have been designed taking all these factors into consideration and that [the construction will happen] as per state norms.

PMC’s tree authority will soon conduct a public hearing to discuss the details of the trees to be cut, the official cited above told The Wire.

Pune’s citizens, however, won’t compromise. They will keep protesting until PMC addresses these concerns and modifies the project correspondingly, they said.

‘Developing’ a river’s banks

According to PMC, urbanisation along the river banks and the release of untreated sewage are degrading the river. Moreover, private properties along the banks have made the river “inaccessible” to the public.

To address these issues, the civic body conceived a ‘river development project’. The 44-km-long stretch of all three rivers running through Pune – around 22 km of the Mula river, 10 km of the Mutha river and 11 km of the Mula-Mutha – will be developed at a cost of around Rs 5,500 crore. The project is divided into phases, and currently, work has begun along the approximately 11-km stretch of the Mula-Mutha river.

The work – costing Rs 1,450 crore, per some estimates – mainly involves building embankments along the river banks, primarily to tackle the issue of flooding. The embankments would house an interceptor sewer line, a means to divert sewage from the river and into the proposed sewage treatment plants. At the same time, the embankments would create a “continuous public realm” along the river that people can use, the PMC website said.

According to the civic body, the project will “prevent the environmental degradation of Pune’s rivers, protect them from being choked by development, reduce the threat of flooding, create a public realm along the river and provide Pune with a vital riverfront that enriches life in the city”.

Also read: In a First, a City Frees a River Using Funds Meant to Concretise It

Trees to be cut, transplanted

Activists have alleged that the project will affect more than 7,500 trees that are placed along the banks of the Mula-Mutha river.

A total number of 4,429 trees would be transplanted for the project along the roughly 11-km stretch of the Mula Mutha river, PMC’s tree authority, which aims to protect trees in urban areas, informed Pune resident Ravindra Sinha, in response to his RTI queries.

And, as many as 3,110 trees would be cut, the RTI responses said.

However, activists have alleged that the fact that so many trees would be affected was not mentioned in any of the public consultations that were conducted for the project. These consultations included meetings with local people to inform them about the project, its impacts, and to register peoples’ concerns, if any.

While PMC officials have claimed that they would cut down mostly exotic or invasive trees, activists have said this is not entirely true.

The stretch of the Mula-Mutha river where the work has begun is an example of a riparian forest, Shailaja Deshpande, co-founder and director of Pune-based NGO Jeevitnadi Living River Foundation told The Wire. It includes native species and trees such as the Salix tetrasperma, commonly called the Indian willow, she said. The RTI responses to Sinha mentioned that native and naturalised trees such as the Ficus species are also likely to face the axe.

However, only 1,500 trees are going to be cut for the project, a PMC official, who did not want to be named, told The Wire. Therefore, citizens’ “apprehensions” over the project are unfounded, he claimed.

He added that this has been done as per the Tree Act, which provides guidelines on which trees can be cut, and that these [guidelines] have been certified by state-appointed consultants.

He was referring to the Maharashtra (Urban Areas) Protection and Preservation Of Trees Act, which regulates tree felling. The Act came into force in 1975. This shortlist will be submitted to the tree authority, which will conduct a hearing during which citizens can raise objections, if they can prove them with facts and figures, he said.

The hearings are likely to take place on May 8, 9 and 10, he told The Wire.

‘This is not just about the trees’

“But it’s not just about the trees,” said Sinha.

The project will affect the entire riparian zone, or the area spanning river banks that support a unique mix of vegetation and wildlife, including water-adapted species.

“From grasses, herbs, shrubs, climbers to aquatic free-floating plants, the Mula, Mutha and the Mula-Mutha together have more than 300 species [of plants] found along the river banks, in littoral ones and in the riverbed,” said Deshpande.

The stretch is also part of the Dr. Salim Ali Biodiversity Park; the area is a proposed bird sanctuary. As per eBird, an online citizen science database that translates bird sightings submitted by birdwatchers into data on species diversity and abundance among others, the area is a birding hotspot and home to 100 bird species. These include migratory birds such as the Ruddy shelduck and birds endemic to the Indian subcontinent such as the purple-rumped sunbird.

When the river enters the Salim Ali Biodiversity Park, it flows through a rocky bed which supports diverse habitats like small river islands, pools, small rapids, aquatic vegetation and muddy banks – all of which support more than 150 species of birds including several migratory water birds, Kedar Champhekar, a Pune-based independent ecologist told The Wire.

“Ironically, this stretch from the confluence downstream is where the riverfront is being implemented, destroying the best habitat on the river system in Pune,” he said.

“This will drastically reduce the bird diversity as the flow will be channelized and made uniform, thus destroying the habitat diversity that is required by different birds.”

The old and dense trees on the banks that the PMC plans to cut also supports a large diversity of woodland birds, and serves as a shelter for water birds, and provides a corridor for biodiversity and stabilises the river banks, said Champhekar.

Also read: The Empty Environmentalism of ‘Rally for Rivers’

Artificial banks

Creating a “public realm along the river”, as the project aims to do, involves concretising the rivers’ banks by building embankments. Jogging and walking tracks – even boating facilities – are also on the cards, as per the detailed project report.

However, activists believe the developments will restrict the local community’s access to these areas.

“Who are these walking and jogging tracks for?” asked Deshpande. “The need is for an ecological and a holistic river rejuvenation that also takes into account social equity and justice of both upstream and downstream communities and in such a way that all sections of society are able to access the area,” she told The Wire.

Another issue that citizens have raised is the impact of the embankments on the river’s width. Though one of the main aims of the project is flood control through the creation of embankments, which would channelize the water, experts said the move will reduce the water carrying capacity of the rivers.

The state’s Water Resources Department (formerly the irrigation department) has designated floodlines for the rivers. A blue floodline on the river bank indicates the area that would be submerged by the highest flood in a 25-year-period, while a red floodline indicates the area submerged by the highest flood in 100 years. Construction is prohibited in the areas within the blue line, and it is restricted in the area under the red line.

According to Sarang Yadwadkar, an architect and a resident of Pune for the past 35 years, the construction of the embankments within the blue floodline – where construction is not permitted – will reduce the space available for water to flow by 40%. This will steeply increase the flood levels in Pune, he said.

On the other hand, a report by the Energy Resource Institute on climate change mitigation in Maharashtra suggests that the annual rainfall in Pune division will increase by 37.5% due to climate change, he added.

At the same time, the number of rainy days will reduce. Bouts of intense rainfall over a shorter time will be a regular phenomenon. This will lead to higher stormwater surface runoffs, which would contribute to frequent flooding instances, said Yadwadkar, who was also a member of the planning committee of Pune’s development plan.

But even if the embankments do materialise, will they really prevent sewage from entering the river?

Learnings from the Sabarmati riverfront in Gujarat do not paint a very promising picture. As per some reports, the Sabarmati Riverfront Development Corporation Limited admitted that the interceptor sewers and sewage diversion networks woven into the riverfront development project have mostly failed due to factors including dysfunctional waste treatment plants.

Unless all the proposed sewage treatment plants are in place and are functioning, the vision of a clean, unpolluted Mula-Mutha is still far away, said Yadwadkar. (Also, the installation of new sewage treatment plants is not part of the riverfront development project.)

Despite the PMC official claiming that the embankments have been designed taking all these factors into consideration, the citizens have raised several concerns, he claimed. “If the floodline changes, if rain enters, and if it is more than what is estimated, then there will be no end to these discussions,” he added.

Yadwadkar had approached the National Green Tribunal in 2020 challenging the environmental clearance (EC) given to the project. Though the NGT ruled that the EC be amended, that has not been done yet. When this was brought to the NGT’s notice again, it ordered that no more new work orders be taken up until this is done. But it did not stop the ongoing construction work.

No compromise

In July and October last year, the state’s Water Resources Department had warned the PMC that they would take action if the riverfront development project flouted the rules and regulations in place to protect the Mula-Mutha river, and that the river flow or course should not be altered in any way.

The construction of the embankments should not affect the width or depth of the river so that there is no reduction in the river’s carrying capacity, said Vijay Patil, executive engineer of the Khadakwasla division in the state’s Water Resources Department.

Recently, the PMC responded to the concerns raised by the department, said Patil. It said that these issues “have been taken care of” in the detailed project report, and this has been verified by the Central Water and Power Research Station (CWPRS), he said.

Meanwhile, Pune citizens are determined to not compromise.

More than 700 citizens have written to the Pune municipal commissioner, Vikram Kumar, just last month objecting to the trees being cut down for the project. According to Sinha, citizens have submitted their objections to the tree felling to the PMC’s tree authority, Pune’s chief conservator of forests and the Pune district collector, among others, in March this year.

It’s about their survival too, they said.

“I want to be able to survive in this city,” Yadwadkar told The Wire, when asked about why he was raising his voice against the project.

“We will continue to protest [against the riverfront development project] until the PMC addresses these issues and modifies the project appropriately,” Deshpande told The Wire. “We are not against the project and we want river rejuvenation. However, the river should first be cleaned, and the project be implemented in such a way that the riparian stretch along the rivers is protected. We hope the PMC will alter the detailed project report accordingly.”

The PMC officer told The Wire that the department was “open” to “technical discussions” that are based on facts and figures. The litmus test may be the tree authority’s upcoming public hearing on May 8.

Anchored in the Barren: The Case of Pune’s Janata Vasahat

The slum dwellers of Janata Vasahat, Pune’s largest slum at the foothills of Parvati Hill, have since 1974 undergone a tumultuous journey in retaining their homeland against state-led attempts to rehabilitate them.

Escaping the claws of the great droughts of 1970s, many low income migrating families from different parts of Maharashtra, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh arrived in scores near a small tekri (hill) of Parvati Hill in Pune, in search of refuge and a livelihood opportunity.

The migrating families occupied this barren land located above the Mutha Nadi Bank Canal, laying the foundation of a settlement, popularly known today as Janta Vasahat — a location that comprises multiple slums with a total population of around 60,000. The residents comprising young daily-wage workers, small-scale businessmen, and even a few IT and tech workers.

In what would be legally viewed as an act of encroachment by incoming migrants, the land of Janata Vasahat above the canal, attracted many local landowners to develop the area for low-income affordable living, building kachcha makaan, some flats and residential spaces for rental profit. Under the local municipal corporation-led development programme, the entire region of Janata Vasahat was reserved for a ‘green park’, due to which any major construction was prohibited. Nevertheless, the key landowners of the land, members of the Raut family, began to rent out small portions of their land, attracting more migrants and low-income locals to take possession.

Janata Vasahat settlement above the Mutha Right Bank Canal. Photo: Jignesh Mistry

Janata Vasahat, Pune’s largest slum at the foothills of Parvati Hill, was considered to be an unauthorised settlement and even now remains legally viewed as a disputed space. Members from our Visual Storyboard team, from the Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES) at the OP Jindal Global University, spent a couple of months interacting with locals, state officials and activists working in the area of Janata Vasahat.

Attempts were made by the municipal corporation to demolish the settlement in 1974. However, this process was stalled by subsequent acts of local political intervention, after which it was eventually notified as a slum. Since then, in years between 1974 and 2021, the slum dwellers of Parvati Hill have undergone a tumultuous journey in retaining their homeland and the residing community against various state-led attempts to ‘rehabilitate the slum’. We discuss some of these below.

Over time, the settlement of Janata Vasahat has evolved into a space that provides access to water and electricity to all its residing population. Photo: Jignesh Mistry

Slum rehabilitation attempts

The rehabilitation attempt of 1980s began with the land acquisition project that sought to provide slum dwellers with HUDCO (Housing and Urban Development Corporation) housing loans and new accommodation in exchange for their rehabilitations. Close to 50% of residents refused to participate in the scheme. The remaining half faced many challenges due to structural flaws in the implementation of the programme. Protests and lawsuits followed over the terrible execution of the scheme that made the slum rehabilitation attempt unsuccessful.

Also read: After the Pandemic, Will We Rethink How We Plan Our Cities?

In 1987, the head of Pune Municipal Corporation’s slum removal department, Kinkar, proposed to buy surplus land at the rate of Re 1/square feet and allocate that land to Janta Vasahat residents so that the entire population from the slum could be shifted from there. Every family was given a plot of land to move out and evacuate the land at Parvati Hill where eventually a park could be built.

Trouble brewed when instead of handing over their property to the government, residents called in their relatives to settle in their houses in Janata Vasahat. With distant families now living in their homes, the old residents moved to these newly acquired land given by the government. Hence, another rehabilitation attempt failed.

The failures of such schemes have led to a strong call for re-evaluating the terms of initiating rehabilitation. It is important to acknowledge and understand how Janata Vasahat (and many settlements like these) are not just ‘slums’, or exclusionary settlements lying outside the ‘planned model of urban development’. It is a representative composition of a tightly knit community of migrants who have created a spatial identity for themselves within the urban landscape of Pune.

Not only is this residential-social network a solace – and a land of opportunity – for all migrant workers who come from all across Maharashtra and other states to Pune, but their livelihoods are deeply entrenched to the habitat itself. Most of our respondents (including more women) said how they opened up shops and other small-scale retail businesses inside this big settlement and make their ends meet from what they make from these businesses.

Many families migrated to Janata Vasahat from their villages to make a better living for themselves and Vasahat became that place where they had an opportunity to lead a relatively more comfortable life with access to housing, water, electricity, public transport etc. No rehabilitation project or development has been able to provide them with these ‘public’ goods in all these decades because of which many residents of Janata Vasahat refuse to move, when any step to displace them takes place.

Many residents own shops in the area that support their livelihoods. Photo: Jignesh Mistry

Rafiq Maniyar*, a bangle seller living in Janata Vasahat, says, “We have access to water, electricity, the bus station is very close from here, the train station is nearby…we have access to all these facilities, so why will anybody settle anywhere else? Builders keep trying to take us out but even according to the law they need 70% of the people in Janata Vasahat to agree to their proposal of rehabilitation, so any such measure always falls apart.”

Also read: When It Comes to Urban Planning, India Suffers From a Poverty of Imagination

From a broader context

The urbanisation process in developing urban economies has undoubtedly been accompanied by significant rural-to-urban migration. Trends of these migratory waves have of course changed across decades. The early 1960s and 1970s (as seen in Janata Vasahat) witnessed an exodus of low-income rural families relocating to nearby urban areas due to natural disasters or simply due to a lack of better employment opportunities.

This migration increased urban population levels and promoted urban growth by providing industries with cheap labour for work in construction and real estate. However, the spatial impact of such migration changed the modern topological complex for good, as many metropolitan areas contain massive slum pockets in the form of low-income settlements.

Amid rising population levels, the demand for affordable housing, especially in cities, has remained unmet. Low-income families often resort to living in squatter settlements and slums. With time, such temporary settlements have transformed into labyrinths of semi-pucca houses and jhuggis. Amid tall skyscrapers and four-lane roads in the urban utopia, the presence of slums is paradoxical, to say the least. As a result, the migrants and their large settlements that were once integral to the urbanisation process are now perceived as roadblocks that prevent urban planning.

At the same time, the Indian government’s concern with slums is a complex, multi-layered issue. Most slums, according to state authorities, including those in Pune, represent the ‘wasted potential of urban land’ — as settlements occupy large areas that can be used for other purposes during urban planning. As officials told us, this space can be used for expanding public road networks, constructing public offices and buildings etc. Most officials acknowledged how in the absence of ‘good affordable housing development schemes’, illegal possession of land and encroachments have become major issues in cities like Pune.

On top of this, there is also the much cited ‘aesthetical motivation’ to remove slums from metropolitan areas. In accordance with the projected standards of modern civilisation and modernist aesthetics — of straight lines, open spaces and visible order — urban planners consider slums as aberrations in the current urban landscape. Hence, quite often governments and local agencies – as seen in Vasahat too – direct their efforts towards re-constructing these areas and imposing new local orders via slum rehabilitation programs, without the consent and consensus of local residents (or their participation). In the past, many such schemes have been curated to allow slum-dwellers to voluntarily rehabilitate themselves in the government-provided, planned housing spaces.

However, the efficiency, ethics and legalities of these programmes – in context to the rights of people – have often been brought into question. The case of Janata Vasahat highlights these conflicts between interests and rights.

Also read: ‘An Order Against the Poor’: Thousands Now Homeless After Khori Gaon Demolition

Spatial conflict of interest and rights

Even though Janata Vasahat has now evolved into a more developed low-income settlement whose residents do not wish to rehabilitate, the concern of illegal occupation of land remains unresolved. In such a case, how does the law – by its own nature – protect the rights and livelihood of the urban poor?

Needless to say, those residing in Janata Vasahat do possess certain legal rights which cannot be denied by authorities. At the very basic level, it is a settled position of law that the right to housing and shelter is an integral component of the Right to Life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. This means that slum dwellers ought to receive a hearing and the right to notice prior to evictions.

Furthermore, residents do possess the right to be rehabilitated in a similar or adequate manner. Effective resettlement has thus been stressed upon by the courts time and again.

Besides shelter, there is also long-standing jurisprudence regarding the right to livelihood. In Olga Tellis v. Union of India, the Supreme Court held that the right to livelihood is an important facet of the right to life which cannot be denied by evicting people except according to the procedure established by law. Therefore, residents of slums – like Janata Vasahat – are protected against arbitrary and unconstitutional actions of authorities that occurred during the rehabilitation project of 1984.

The issue, however, is the lack of awareness amongst communities about these ‘rights’ and to claim them through a legal process. There are hardly any legal activists or legal aid centres accessible for such population – not just in Vasahat, but in most slums across the city – which could help local, low-income migrant groups against ‘interest groups’ like big capital builders, working in nexus with municipal corporations.

The atmanirbhar residents of Janata Vasahat. Photo: Jignesh Mistry

Rehabilitation attempts of the past have come at the cost of livelihoods and well-being of the communities being displaced. Those living in Janata Vasahat may consider themselves lucky. Going forward, as the ‘state’ and ‘residents’ battle, considering more inclusive, and deliberative, consensus -led plans for urban re-development and upgradation might be the prudent choices rather than a complete rehabilitation.

In the spirit of community living, it is important to re-evaluate slum rehabilitation programmes to ensure that the programme is benefitting those who need it most — the silenced, often ‘voiceless’ urban-poor.

There is now a provision for this under the ‘Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) — Housing for All’ mission, as part of the “In-Situ” Slum Redevelopment Program (ISSR) which aims at unleashing the locked potential of the lands currently under slums while bringing slum dwellers into the formal urban settlement.

While this policy might seem more promising, it is imperative that the residents are provided with the needed legal, economic, social and even psychological support to come to terms with such policy programmes. Housing policies need to be fair, just, reasonable, and according to the principles of natural justice. The reality, unfortunately, seems far from this.

*Note: Name of the respondent has been changed to protect his identity.

This study was undertaken as part of a Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES) Visual Storyboard initiative. Please check all video essays and photo essays on this storyboard to know more about the team’s work and its visual archive. Authors would like to especially thank professor Aneeta Gokhale Benninger, executive director, Centre for Development Studies and Activities (CDSA), Pune and the research team at MASHAL, an NGO in Pune, for all their kind support and assistance provided during the project’s fieldwork.

Deepanshu Mohan is associate professor of Economics and Director, Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES), Jindal School of Liberal Arts, OP Jindal Global University. Jignesh Mistry is a senior research analyst and the Visual Storyboard team lead with CNES. Advaita Singh, Vanshika Shah, Sarah Ayreen are senior research analysts with CNES. We thank Ada Nagar and Vanshika Mittal for their assistance in producing the video essays.

COVID-19: In Pune, Measures to Stop Private Hospitals From Overcharging Prove Ineffective

Pune has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in India.

Pune: Pune has the highest number of COVID-19 cases, and many patients are opting for treatment at private hospitals. The district administration has appointed audit teams to rein in hospitals from overcharging patients. But that might not provide much-needed relief to patients as the committee will check the bills of only 1.86% of the total number of patients who have been treated at private hospitals until now.

The audit teams would only check bills of the patients who have been charged more than Rs 1.5 lakh, leaving the majority of them out of its purview.

Therefore, bills pertaining to only 2,578 persons as against more than 1.38 lakh patients who have been treated at private facilities would come under this scanner. Patients, moreover, are not aware of this measure.

Pune district has been worst affected by COVID-19 with 57,926 active cases, 3,08,434 total cases and 6,073 deaths, according to Pune divisional commissionerate. It has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in any city across India as of October 7.

Maharashtra had recorded 2,44,527 active cases, 14,80,489 total cases and 39,072 as on that day, as per the public health department (PHD) of the state.

Price capping

In order to control private hospitals from overcharging COVID-19 patients, the Maharashtra government has capped prices for treatment, through a government resolution and a notification.

For example, charges for routine care and isolation wards per patient have been fixed at Rs 4,000, charges for intensive care unit (ICU) without ventilator, at Rs 7,500, and ICU with a ventilator at Rs 9,000. Besides, charges for consumables like personal protective equipment (PPE), should be divided among all patients in the ward concerned.

Also read: What Pune’s Sero-Survey Does and Doesn’t Tell Us About Its COVID-19 Epidemic

But hospitals continue to overcharge patients. Thus, separate audit teams have been assigned for all major hospitals, while one audit team works for all small hospitals. The total number of functioning audit teams, however, has not been disclosed by authorities.

COVID-19 facilities

Pune district has 223 COVID-19 facilities, which include dedicated COVID-19 hospitals (DCH), dedicated COVID-19 health centres (DCHC) and COVID-19 care centres (CCC). While 45 facilities are of the government’s, 182 are run by private players according to the Divisional Commissionerate. Although the dashboard shows 253 facilities, 20 facilities do not have beds.

According to the official data, 60% patients in Pune are hospitalised, while 40% patients, who are asymptomatic, are under home isolation. Thus, 1,85,060 patients have been treated at hospitals. Of them, 75% patients have opted for treatment at private facilities, says the divisional commissioner of Pune, Saurabh Rao. This comes to a total of 1.38 lakh patients, who have taken treatment at private hospitals.

	Area	Number of audited bills	Inflated amount charged by hospitals
1	Pune Municipal Corporation	695	Rs 1.97 crore
2	Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation	1,172	Rs 1.7 crore
3	Pune Rural	711	Rs 64 lakh
	Total	2,578	Rs 4.31 crore

Source: Pune district administration

But audit teams have checked bills of only 2,578 patients and have saved them Rs 4.31 crores, as per the data provided by the administration to The Wire. However, the admin refused to provide data of the hospital names and more details on hospital-wise inflated bills.

“Approximately 15% patients require oxygen, 4.5% require ICU without a ventilator and 4.5% require ventilator support,” says Dr. Pradip Awate of the public health department.

About 24% patients require critical care and their bills are higher. At least 33,120 patients have received hefty bills, though this figure could this be less than what the situation is. But, the administration has checked only 7.7% bills of patients who needed critical care, leaving the majority to fend for themselves.

Little respite for affected families

Amruta Kharabi (67), a farmer from Chakan, has been undergoing treatment at Jahangir Hospital, one of the reputed hospitals in the city, from September 11. His family has already paid Rs 7 lakh.

“My father was in ICU for 15 days till September 26, and now he is in the general ward. ICU charges are Rs 9,000 per day as per government orders, including consultation, nursing charges, and investigations, like CBC among others. I do not understand how they handed over this much bill of 25 days. He is still in the hospital,” Kharabi’s son Rahul says.

Pune district has been worst affected by COVID-19 with 57,926 active cases, 3,08,434 total cases and 6,073 deaths. Photo: REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

Kriti Care Centre in Chakan, Pune, has handed over a bill of Rs 3.6 lakh to Ajay Pande (54), who runs a salon in Chakan. Jyoti Dhamale, his sister says, “He was on a ventilator for 11 days and on oxygen for seven days in the general ward along with four more patients. The hospital has charged Rs 10,000 for the room per day for 18 days, Rs 10,000 as ventilator charges for 11 days and oxygen charges pf Rs 3,000 for seven days. No break down of nursing charges, PPEs, consultation charges have been mentioned. We have got all tests done and bought medicines ourselves.”

Dhamale has complained to various agencies, including audit teams, since the day when her brother was discharged from the hospital on October 6.

Lackadaisical approach

Asked about why authorities have not been able to check every bill, additional commissioner of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), Rubal Agarwal, tells The Wire, “Pune has many patients and to check each bill is not practical. Audit teams check all bills above Rs 1.5 lakh. If patients with bills less than Rs 1.5 lakh complain, audit teams check that too.”

Also read: How Our Cities Turned the National COVID-19 Crisis From Bad to Worse

When asked to disclose the names of hospitals which have overcharged patients, she refused to disclose the information saying that it might damage the reputation of hospitals.

Dr Manisha Naik, who heads the audit team at PMC says, “Government has decided Rs 1.5 lakh based on capped rates. And we follow the same rule.”

Overcharging by private hospitals continue

Activists, who have been helping patients ensure that audit is carried out for their bills, say the government’s efforts have not been of much use.

Social activist Vasant More says, “PMC had appointed audit teams only at 25 hospitals that are big. And, one health official looks into the bills of remaining 50 hospitals in the PMC’s jurisdiction from the end of August. We have to help patients get their bills to the audit team. They themselves cannot do it.”

A woman sits with her child inside a quarantine centre for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients amidst the spread of the disease at an indoor sports complex in New Delhi, India, September 22, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Anushree Fadnavis

Many patients are not aware of audit teams and many are not in a position to get in touch with audit teams. “Members of the audit teams are transferred to other jobs, and they are not working with full capacity since the first week of this month,” More adds.

Mayuri Gawade (30) had to deposit Rs 40,000 to admit both her parents at Jeevandhara Hospital, Katraj, Pune. She says, “I have visited PMC to bring down the deposit amount, but no use. The hospital has charged Rs 90,000, including deposit, for just three days. Where do I get the money from? My father drives an auto, and my mother is a homemaker. I have to run my house and take care of my family.”

Navnath Kamate (45), a businessman from Katraj, had admitted his father-in-law Ramchandra Sanas (70) at Bharati Hospital, Pune. Sanas died on the fourth day. Kamate says, “I had to pay a Rs 1.40-lakh deposit, and Rs 66,000 as bills for four days. Besides, I have also paid for expensive medication separately.”

Kamate had approached the PMC audit team, but he had lost one bill and could not get the benefit of the scheme.

On the other hand, officials have not responded as to what action would they take against hospitals which are overcharging patients in violation of government norms.

Varsha Torgalkar is an independent journalist.

The Gender Beat: Transgender Candidates for West Bengal Elections Threatened; Bangladesh Queer Rally Cancelled by Authorities

A round-up of what’s happening in the worlds of gender and sexuality

Bangladesh Rainbow Pride Rally, 2014. Courtesy: Gaylaxy.

Bangladesh Rainbow Rally, 2014. Courtesy: Gaylaxy.

Study on sexist video games and their impact on real-world empathy

Young men who strongly identify with male characters in sexist and violent video games, such as Grand Theft Auto, are not as empathetic towards survivors of real-life violence against women as those who don’t, according to a new study.

The study was carried out at Ohio State University in the US using three kinds of games: games that are considered violent and sexist, games that are considered neither and games that are considered violent, but not sexist.

According to the researchers, young men who identified the most with male video games characters were likelier to agree with ‘masculine beliefs’.

The sexism and gender-based violence depicted in video games has long been criticised by commentators. In mid-2014, a group of people ostensibly concerned with the protection of the ‘gamer’ identity against alleged violations of journalistic ethics launched a campaign of harassment against video game developer Zoe Quinn.

Since then, the harassment and attacks perpetrated by the movement – known colloquially as ‘GamerGate’ – spread across social media, and targeted prominent critics of misogyny in video game culture, such as feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian, as well as their supporters.

Pune to give financial support to women with no sources of income

The Pune Municipal Corporation has approved a scheme that will give women who have no sources of income a thousand rupees a month. The money is meant to go to over 25,000 women in the city. However, according to a report in The Times of India, the women who want to avail of the scheme have to produce evidence that they have less than one lakh rupees in their possession.

Woman launches petition directed at redBus

A woman who was reportedly sexually abused during a journey booked via the company redBus has started an online campaign asking the company to ensure that women passengers are safe from violence during their journeys.

The woman, Rashmi Bachani, has started an online petition asking the company to take steps to increase accountability towards women passengers, including an emergency complaint system on their mobile application, and a phone number to call in case any harassment is perpetrated during the journey. “We can expect basic facilities & respect, considering we are spending 12-14 hours of our lives in their care,” reads the text of the petition.

West Bengal elections: trans candidates intimidated into not filing nominations

Two transgender election candidates who were going to be fielded by the Lok Janshakti Party have allegedly been threatened and intimidated into not filing their nominations. Bobby Halder, who was planning to contest elections from Bhawanipore, and Sankari Mondal, who was going to do so from Jadavpur, said they’d been threatened by people belonging to the Trinamool Congress party. Their party’s state president has been quoted as saying: “Ever since their candidature was announced, both were constantly threatened, humiliated and intimidated by Trinamool goons.” She adds that nobody could be found to officially propose them as candidates. The party will be approaching the Election Commission for further action.

Bangladesh queer rally cancelled by authorities

A rainbow pride rally that queer activists wanted to hold during Bengali New Year celebrations had to be cancelled after authorities refused to let them organise it.

Islamists had threatened to beat up participants of the rally, saying that it is was ‘un-Islamic and haram.’ Four unnamed queer activists were arrested by the police, who accused them of attempting to hold the event despite the official cancellation. The group which organises the rally, Roopbaan, said that they had not attempted to hold it.

More male babies born to Indian-origin families in Canada: study

Indian-origin women in Canada who already have two or more children have a disproportionately high number of male children, a new study reveals, giving rise to worries that the community is practicing sex-selective abortion.

Between 1990 and 2011, Indian-origin women in Canada who had two children gave birth to 138 boys per 100 girls. Those with three children had 166 boys per 100 girls. In an Ontario-specific study, it was found that women who already had two daughters gave birth to 196 boys per 100 girls.

Speaking to The Globe and Mail, Amrita Mishra, project director at the Indo-Canadian Women’s Association in Edmonton, says: “I see Canada as enabling as such practices. And I refuse to have this turn into an Indian issue that’s been imported like vegetables or fruit into Canada.”