Bhuj town planning hampered by administrative tangles

The chief minister has gone on record boasting about the ideal model for the reconstruction of Bhuj in a record time of four years after the devastating earthquake of 2001.

But in reality the Bhuj Development Authority (BDA), a body formed by the government for the reconstruction of Bhuj, is facing severe administrative problems in implementing the modern town planning of the Bhuj city.

"We are facing a lot of problems in implementing the modern township planning of Bhuj city. The city survey records were prepared around 40 years back and they were not updated due to lack of information on ownership, sub-plotting and encroachments, among others. However, around 5,000 houses have been built so far and 3,000 more are yet to be constructed. We expect to solve the problems by June and build all the houses by December this year." Kaushik Thanki, chief executive officer of BDA told Business Standard.

A total of Rs 400 crore was granted for the reconstruction work in Bhuj by the World Bank (Rs 240 crore for reconstruction of houses) and Rs 160 crore by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for the infrastructure development. Of the total corpus only Rs 125 crore has been utilised so far.

"We have set a record for the world by reconstructing Bhuj in a record time of four years, as according to World Bank study it takes at least 10 years to come out of the calamity of such magnitude. We have adopted a unique model for the development of Bhuj with the help from the people who lost their houses. Our model was different from those followed in advanced countries for reconstruction," said Modi in an award function in Ahmedabad last week.

Since the planning stage, starting from the preparing of a draft for the modern township planning schemes to the implementation stage, BDA has been facing several problems.

According to BDA, although the city survey records were finalised they were not accurate. The town planning officers were finally able to finalise the modern town planning scheme only by September, 2004.

The town planning schemes are to be implemented in over 7,500 houses (final plots) but the authority is finding it difficult to implement the schemes and has already received over 1,500 objections.

The authority has allocated several plots to the owners of the original plots without verifying their credentials. Even the town planning officer was not informed about the allocation.

These houses, ranging between one-storyed to five-storyed were made, based on the municipal records and could not be co-related with the city survey records.

Town planning schemes are physical plan oriented, which are prepared mainly in revenue areas. The schemes are prepared in new social condition such as tenants, sub-divided properties, semi-rural atmosphere.

"We are facing several problems in the implementation of the scheme, as the final plots are not given on original plots. The original plots were affected by road cutting and they have been shifted to another locality. But this shift is being resisted because the given plots have smaller roads, and are nearer to the locality of other caste and religion," said Thanki.

However, Thanki showed hope that the all problems will b sorted out soon and the projects will be implemented soon.