'Escape road' planned in Hazira industrial area

The 'escape road' will be set up at a cost of over Rs 8 crore.

This decision was taken at a meeting of the Hazira Area Development Authority (HADA) area action committee chaired by Union rural development minister Kashiram Rana.

"An 'escape road' is the need of the hour in an industrial area like Hazira. This road would be connected with all the nine villages and would be completed in a time bound period," the rural development minister said.

Several huge industrial complexes are located in the Hazira area, which includes the integrated steel mill complex of Essar Steel, the heavy engineering unit of Larsen & Toubro, the massive petrochemicals complex of Reliance Industries, the LNG station of Shell, the gas-based power project of National Thermal Power Corporation, the urea plant of KRIBHCO, a gas bottling plant of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the GAIL India plant which sends gas through the Hazira-Bijapur-Jagdishpur pipeline to north India and the gas processing complex of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.

The Hazira Area Development Authority's area is spread over 5,267 hectare encompassing nine villages.

The most affected village is Mora, while the least affected is Suvanli.

The Hazira Notified Area authority has collected Rs 962 lakh worth taxes during the current year.

Of this, Rs 314 lakh has been given to the district rural development agency for the development of nine villages.

Of this, Rs 103 lakh has been spent on developmental works. Other developmental works are also in progress, officials said.

The meeting also decided to re-carpet the Ichhapore-Magdalla road and the Ichhapore-Hazira road.

The meeting also resolved to set up traffic islands on the road network of Hazira, set up rest places for the drivers, cleaners and assorted staff of thousands of trucks which frequent the Hazira area.

Savitabahen Sharda, Rajya Sabha MP from Surat, Olpaad MLA Dhansukh Patel, district development officer S Murli Krishna, area officials, engineers and representatives of the Hazira industries were present at the meeting.