‘Pune is in dire need of a full-fledged airport’

Pune: Ajinkya Firodia, the managing director at Kinetic Engineering, wears two hats. He also leads Motoroyale Kinetic — India’s only known dealer in premium motorcycle brands.
Firodia’s work entails frequent visits abroad, as the company also dabbles in automotive component exports. Besides travelling overseas, his travel list includes constant trips to Mumbai or Delhi — even thinking of which is tiresome for Firodia.
“It is stressful to plan a trip because boarding a flight from Mumbai or Delhi is expensive and requires two extra days, which is quite a lot for people who travel often,” he says.
Firodia says that Pune is a reasonably important city to not have a full-fledged international airport. “For an industry to grow, we need air connectivity. The talks have been going on for years. But it is 2019 and we still don’t have a full-fledged international airport. Once you have connectivity, you have opportunity,” he says.
The makeshift domestic airport in the city is not too enchanting for him either. “Once, it was raining and there were no buses to take passengers to the flight. After checking-in, I went to the flight holding area. At this point, it was pouring and the cabin crew said ‘run’. So we all had to run in the pouring rain. The airport was a mess,” he recollects.
Firodia, who grew up in Pune, says the deterioration of the city is not limited to the airport. He says, “Pune used to be a beautiful city. People would come here from Mumbai for the cool weather and to relax. Everything is so stressful these days.”
He says, “If we just retain the weather, anyone would like to come here for business. Everything is good — the quality of life, people, schools, clubs, restaurants and cafés, to list a few. It is one of the safest cities in India. There are industries of all sorts. Despite all these, the city is going down rapidly due to lack of planning and slow implementation.”
Looking back on the pleasant weather in Pune, he says, “Pune has lost most of its green cover. It all depends on city planning where the green zones are preserved with building public transport and infrastructure quickly. A similar project takes three months in China but it takes three years here. It should not be like that,” he says.
The problem, Firodia points out, is that there is no coordination within civic departments. “Pune is in a perpetual developing stage as many projects like the Metro, BRTS, construction of flyovers are taken up altogether. A route that would take 20 minutes about a decade ago with narrower roads now takes 45 minutes with broader roads due to the ongoing work,” he says.
Firodia cites the example of the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, where newly constructed roads were squandered due to MahaMetro and BRTS work. “A large portion of the beautiful roads in Pimpri Chinchwad were dug up. The Pune Municipal Corporation can build similar roads and refrain from digging them up later on,” he observes.
The benchmark for Pune should be global cities. Most cities in India have been deteriorating due to lack of planning, he says.
Pollution is a curse on any city with rapidly expanding human and automobile population. “There are cities in US and China where the number of automobiles sold is 10 times as compared to Pune. But the pollution there is much lower. It is not just about vehicles, it is also about infrastructure. If you look at China, the traffic there is disciplined. If people get proper infrastructure, they will comply,” he says.