The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), which has been under criticism for delay in executing various development projects, has however received praise from the World Bank for its rehabilitation of the project affected people (PAP). Municipal Commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi had recently made a presentation of the PMC initiative at a meeting of all the municipal commissioners of the selected cities under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) with the World Bank officers. The PMC has decided to rehabilitate its project affected people in apartments that came into its custody under the Economic Weaker Section (EWS) scheme. It has made it mandatory for big housing projects in the proposed development control (DC) rules to construct cheaper housing for the domestic work. "The World Bank official were impressed with the PMC initiative and soon will be sending its team for detail study of the rehabilitation of project affected people. The World Bank might urge its replication in other cities,' Pardeshi told The Indian Express. The World Bank funding is based on the satisfactory rehabilitation measures of the project affected people by the respective civic body, he said adding, "The PMC initiative will help it to get the World Bank loan for the additional cost of the re-estimated JNNURM projects.' Meanwhile, Pardeshi has directed the PMC estate department to take custody of all apartments from the developers as offered under the EWS scheme. "The number of apartments to be taken custody by PMC are much more and are held up due to various technical reasons. I have asked the concerned officers to resolve the issues with developers and take custody of the apartments,' he added. The apartments were not being taken custody by the PMC due to shortfall in construction of the fact as per municipal corporation demands and in some cases due to demand of late fee charged on developers for not handing over the apartments in scheduled time. Pardeshi said the PMC can also rehabilitate the project affected people in the big projects with housing for low income people once the new DC rules make its mandatory for big projects to make such provision. Under the rehabilitation process, the PMC has decided to sell its apartments across the city at 10 per cent of the construction cost to PAP, but on certain conditions that it will not be sold for next 15 years. The PMC at present has around 1,350 apartments in its custody obtained from private builders on plots reserved for economically weaker section (EWS).