The project will be among the largest township projects by the state government and will have potential to attract investments worth Rs 21,300 crore.

Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis will launch the Hitech City project in Pune on Friday. The project will be among the largest township projects by the state government and will have potential to attract investments worth Rs 21,300 crore.

The project by the Pune Metropolitan Development Authority (PMRDA) has taken off with pooling of land by nearly 5,200 farmers. Majority of land owners have signed up and handed over their plots. In return, they will be getting residential unites, so landowners will not have to relocate nor the government have to incur land acquisition costs.

Kiran Gitte, metropolitan commissioner and CEO, PMRDA, said if they had to acquire this land, the government would have to spend close to Rs 10,000 crore which was not possible but land pooling under the Town Planning Scheme enabled them to launch such a large township.

The Hitech City project at Mahalunge Maan, along the Mumbai-Bengaluru Highway, near the Hinjewadi IT hub will be a residential-cum-commercial hub across 250 hectares and is coming up under the first township planing scheme in the state.

The city will have around seven crore square feet developed area and will house 1.5 lakh people, including residents and workforce, Gitte said. It will also have 5,000 affordable housing units in the township.

Around 38.4 million square feet of residential space, worth Rs 7,600 crore, and 16.5 million square feet commercial space, worth Rs 3,300 crore, would be developed here. Work on the physical infrastructure project started from Friday with investment of Rs 620 crore, Gitte said. The PMRDA will first build roads, water supply systems, sewage lines, electrification and reserve space for social infrastructure before inviting investors to the township.

Gitte said PMRDA would be organising road shows to get investors for the project. This would be a model township and this will be replicated across 13 such townships in the city.