By Kartik Lokhande
In
the past 15 years, several lands in the city were marked as reserved.
However, only 7 to 10 per cent could be developed. Shravan Hardikar,
Municipal Commissioner, disclosed this during a two-day workshop on
Development Plan of the city.
Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC)
organised a workshop at Hotel Centre Point here to ensure proper
orientation of officers of NMC regarding challenges in implementing
Development Plan of the city, and solutions to those. Munna Pokulwar,
Deputy Mayor, inaugurated the workshop.
Narendra Borkar, Chairman of
NMC Standing Committee; Harish Dikondwar, Chairman of Sports and
Cultural Affairs Committee; Pramod Bhusari and Sanjay Kakde, both
Additional Deputy Municipal Commissioners; Prakash Urade, Superintending
Engineer; S S Hastak, Tax Assessor; Sunil Gujjelwar, Superintending
Engineer of Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT), Sujata Kadu, Joint Director
of Nagpur Metropolitan Region Development Authority; and others were
present prominently.
Addressing the officers, Hardikar pointed out
that the next Development Plan must be prepared with an objective to
achieve development of remaining of the reserved lands within a short
span of time. Further, future needs of the city must be taken into
consideration. For the purpose, he appealed to the officers present,
noted urban planner Dr Bimal Patel’s guidance was important. Dr Patel is
President of Centre for Environmental Planning and Training (CEPT)
University, Ahmedabad, and Director of Environmental Planning
Collaborative.
Dr Patel informed the officers about changes effected
in various cities in Gujarat. He threw light on how private lands were
made available for infrastructure development in Ahmedabad through land
pooling initiative, how people’s participation was ensured. He also
highlighted Sabarmati river front development, ring road in Ahmedabad,
re-developing earthquake-hit Bhuj, etc. He asked the officers to prepare
viable schemes and not to go after imposing impractical high-standard
schemes on people.
Dr Patel, Hardikar, and Mahesh Gupta, Executive
Engineer (Projects), later visited Ambazari over-flow point of Nag
river, and discussed how to develop the river stretch on the lines of
river-front in Baroda.
Sunita Aloni, Joint Director (Town Planning)
of NIT, made a presentation about revised Development Plan of the city,
development under Gunthewari provisions etc. Sujata Kadu made a
presentation on Metro Region draft development plan. Ujwala Chakradeo,
Principal of Manoramabai Mundle (LAD) College of Architecture, shed
light on documentation of Grade-I heritage structures in city. Shirley
Balani, Chirayu Bhat also guided the participants during the workshop.
Could not do much due to financial constraints: Borkar
Narendra
Borkar, the outgoing Chairman of NMC Standing Committee, on Thursday,
told reporters in a press conference that he could not do much for the
city’s development in his one year tenure due to ‘financial condition’
of NMC.
“Of the proposals worth Rs 120 crore, Standing Committee
headed by me could clear proposals worth only Rs 35 crore. The main
reason is the bad financial condition of NMC,” Borkar said. He chaired
probably his last meeting of Standing Committee as its Chairman, on
Thursday. Apart from bad financial condition of NMC, till November 2014,
nothing could be done as Model Code of Conduct for Lok Sabha and
Legislative Assembly elections was in force.
“Still, I am happy that
during my tenure, Orange City Street (London Street) and Ambazari
amusement park proposals could move ahead to the level of tender
process. Of course, there are many more works that could not move
forward,” Borkar lamented. In the Standing Committee meeting held on
Thursday, three proposals for construction of cement-concrete roads and
three proposals of tarring were cleared.
(Filed on February 26, 2015)
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