Minister plans big for Nagpur

Nagpur may enter the big league if the plans of Satish Chaturvedi, Maharashtra textile minister and guardian minister for Nagpur district, fructify.

At a meeting organised here recently by the Nag-Vidarbha Chamber of Commerce (NVCC), the apex body of traders in the region, the minister spelt out his plans for making Nagpur one of the top three cities in the country.

These include gifting the city a sky-rail, several flyovers, a hospital on the lines of AIIMS, five-star hotel, and a new road circumventing the city.

The minister told the gathering that several proposals involving investments to the tunes of hundreds of crores have been placed before the Centre and the state government.

According to him, the city would get the country's first sky railway by 2009. A Swiss company has evinced interest in setting up the system. The company has proposed that it would build the suspended rail system and operate it till it recoups its investment. Thus, the cost to the state would be negligible. The rail line will connect Pardi Naka on one extreme of the city to the Ordnance Factory area on the other side and the company would levy a charge of Re 1 per kilometre for ferrying passengers. After 9 pm, it could be used for ferrying goods, Chaturvedi said.

Before that, work on the new flyover above and parallel to Central Avenue would begin. The bridge would start from Vaishno Devi Square, in the busy business district of the city, and end at the road touching the railway station, he said. It is expected that tenders for the project would be floated within a couple of months. With this, those living at the eastern tip of the city would be able to reach the railway station within five to seven minutes against the 45 to 60 minutes it now takes, he added.

The Itwari flyover, which was initially planned as a two-laned one, will now be a four-laned bridge and the state government has agreed to provide Rs 10 crore for the project instead of Rs 3 crore allotted earlier. An extra Rs 5 crore has also been secured for the Maskasath bridge. Work has also been expedited to build the cotton market overbridge, said Chaturvedi.

An outer ring-road for the city is also being planned. The old ring-road no longer serves the purpose of a circumventing road, as the city has expanded and many areas it touches fall within the municipal limits, he added.

A plan has also been chalked out to develop an area 25 km away from the zero milestone where residential colonies or other complexes can come up in plots spread over 100 acres. This can be done in association with the private sector, he said.

A lot would be done to develop Nagpur as the country's medical hub too. Textile major, Indo Rama Synthetics (India) Limited, has expressed interest to develop a multi-specialty hospital in the city. The company may be allotted vacant land near Medical College's TB Ward for the same. In case Indo Rama is not in a position to build the hospital, Reliance is ready to take over the job. The Centre will also be pressed to allot around Rs 400 crore for setting up a referral hospital in the city, which will be akin to AIIMS, he said. Indo Rama officials, when contacted, denied comment.

Chaturvedi lamented the frequent blackouts in the city and said that an electrification project entailing an investment of Rs 275 crore was also under way.

A rail overbridge has also been planned near Mankapur on the road reaching pilgrims to the Koradi Temple. The minister felt that the city's development would remain incomplete without a five-star hotel. If Nagpur wants to match global standards and be counted in the top three cities of the country, it should have a five-star property. And if there is none, the government will ensure that a five star property comes up here.

Chaturvedi announced that he would offer any government land for setting up the hotel and urge leaders in the hospitality sector such as the Taj Group and others to invest here. "All the development would be incomplete without a five-star hotel and there is none in the city at present," he said.

Earlier during the meeting NVCC's president B C Bhartia apprised Chaturvedi of the problems being faced by the trading community.