Once the work order is in place, Ahmedabad-based Centre For Environment Planning and Technology (CEPT) will assist in the development of a satellite town, 60 km away from Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius. The project will be jointly executed by global accounting firm Ernst & Young (E&Y) and CEPT.
"The government of Mauritius is developing a satellite town for IT firms for which it had approached E&Y, who in turn asked for our technical assistance. The research and consultancy division at CEPT would provide the required expertise in town planning," said Utpal Sharma, director of CEPT. Research work on the 7,000 hectares huge land is expected to be completed over a period of two years.
The institute is also in talks for a similar project with Sri Lanka, added Sharma. The institute had earlier taken up a similar town planning project for Bhutan. However, unlike the earlier project, where the proposals on town planning, including the public transport system, solid waste management, water supply and multi-level parking were designed by the students as part of their curriculum, the Mauritius project would be handled entirely by the faculty at CEPT.
Under the Bhutan project, students had presented four proposals to the director of the Ministry of Works and Human Settlement along with two officials from the Town Planning Department of Bhutan, who had come to Ahmedabad to discuss the blueprints. The total cost of the project to the Bhutanese government was estimated to be around Rs 50 crore by CEPT.