R/Sir, I'm from Chhattisgarh and presently working in Bangalore. Its heartening to note that Chhattisgarh will have a brand new capital city. A new city built from scratch has huge advantges in terms of infrastructure and so on. The look of the city should be such that we should feel proud to belong to Chhattisgarh. Do give us an idea about the period it will take to commission the new capital. I have a few suggestions regarding infrastructure etc: 1. Optimum use solar energy can be one of the objectives while building the city. The Govt may think of incentivising usage of solar energy both for residential and office premises. 2. While planning green cover, use of native trees and plants can be kept in mind. Apart from giving the city a local flavour the native plants are regarded as enrcihing source of earth. 3. Laws providing for violation of municipal rules may be deterent. 4. The tersm of contract / agreement should provide for heavy penalty payable by the project executing companies in case of poor construction. With regards. P Baiga Bangalore
R/Sir, I'm from Chhattisgarh and presently working in Bangalore. Its heartening to note that Chhattisgarh will have a brand new capital city. A new city built from scratch has huge advantges in terms of infrastructure and so on. The look of the city should be such that we should feel proud to belong to Chhattisgarh. Do give us an idea about the period it will take to commission the new capital. I have a few suggestions regarding infrastructure etc: 1. Optimum use solar energy can be one of the objectives while building the city. The Govt may think of incentivising usage of solar energy both for residential and office premises. 2. While planning green cover, use of native trees and plants can be kept in mind. Apart from giving the city a local flavour the native plants are regarded as enrcihing source of earth. 3. Laws providing for violation of municipal rules may be deterent. 4. The tersm of contract / agreement should provide for heavy penalty payable by the project executing companies in case of poor construction. With regards. P Baiga Bangalore
Being one of the several planners who was involved in designing the New Capital City of Raipur - it was designed by Consulting Engineering Services, New Delhi (the lead consultant), PWD Singapore and Darashaw.Atkins and that Malaysian firm (putrajaya relevance)was the second. The project being implemented is that stood first. It was not Putrajaya or Brasiliya or Anyone else than Raipur Itself. The site context that allowed us to develop a city master plan respecting the water resources of the cit. The capital was located at the highest point of the site with a waterbody around it to be used by Architects as an element of design. Yes Chandigarh had been an inspiration but the site, climate, people, policies, opportunities and the local contexts were the inspiration. The green zone was not just a green buffer but to create an identiy demand of the real estate within the city istead of its periphery, so that it does not get damaged by unwanted speculative sprawl.
The Chairman Naya Raipur Development Authority Raipur (Chhattisgarh)
Sub: Objections in the proposed Development Plan for New Raipur City
Dear Sir,
Sir, we are residents of Raipur having shifted to Gurgaon, adjacent to Delhi, but have parental land in Raipur. It came to our notice that the State Government is coming up with a New Caiptal City. We are keeping interest in the future of our state and following the developments.
We are very enthusiast and encouraged with the effort and like our state to progress and along will come development and employment opportunities. The state lacks basic infrastructure and white collar jobs. We would like the new city to develop on the lines of Gurgaon, which is coming up as preferred destination for MNC%u2019s for their offices and even the Delhi residents.
In regard to the proposed Development Plan of New Raipur, we the undersigned have objection to the same as the proposed Plan leave a very wide scope of dependence on the future CEO%u2019s of the authority.
We understand that with a right earnest you have proposed to develop the New Raipur Capital City under Public Private Partnership (PPP) Model for early execution of the Project. But your successor may or may not like this model and would like to go for development through Public Sector departments like PWD, CPWD etc. This will give the new city look of a large LIG Colony. Unwilling officers can delay the PPP model very easily by putting unfair conditions and delaying the tender process, which discourages the private investor.
We are confident of your capabilities, but your successor may or may not agree on the proposals.
Further you have mentioned that a large buffer & green zone is proposed on 80% of the land.
We would like to bring into your notice that Chhattisgarh is in itself a buffer and green zone. More than 50% of the State is forest area. Green is no doubt very good & its benefits are not disputed. But keeping this large area green will encourage Unauthorized construction and bribing of local officers. New Delhi, capital city of India is a rampant example of the same.
The proposed buffer zone already have residential, industrial & commercial Units working in it. It is not practically possible or feasible to demolish all of them. If they are allowed, then why their neigh-borers are deprived of the same liberty.
If the whole State & its people has facility to get their land use changed from agriculture to residential-industrial-commercial, then why the people of this patch be deprived of the opportunity. Change of land use is even allowed in the present Raipur city, where possibility of improving infrastructure is limited.
Why will they be allowed to do only agriculture on their on land, when they want to do other activities. This un-justifying clause will take the whole master plan in litigation.
For saving, the whole land, which is proposed as buffer & green zone should be acquired at today%u2019s market price and developed as City forest & Parks. Which we think will put a lot of pressure on the finances and is not feasible.
We propose that the Government should develop City forest as per urban development norms on its own land. Developing 20% lush green forest and park is more environmentally beneficial then keeping 80% area as rural agriculture zone, where water and other resources are exploited.
No World class city has 80% green or rural zone because they are not world class if they are so empty.
Our State needs White Collar Jobs and total dependency of providing world classs infrastructure like residential, commercial, IT Parks and others, on NRDA developed zone will be a too much of risk.
The land which is not under Planned area should be allowed development with certain FSI rules been followed by other developing cities like Gurgaon, Noida, Pune & Bangalore.
The authority should only do adequate planning of roads and providing infrastructure like roads, water, sewage disposal and treatment electricity and all on charges. Rest leave on market forces. The planning of roads should be done in whole of NRDA area, all the three zones on day one.
Leaving open green buffer zone of private land will only give rise to unauthorized construction, which will never be controlled.
Capital City of Delhi has more than 1500 unauthorized colonies on agriculture and government land, which at last the government is going to regularize, as it is not possible to displace 30 lac people. But now situation is such that not even minimal infrastructure is possible to build or provide in these colonies. Delhi Development Authority (DDA) is the main culprit of this mess. DDA didn%u2019t allowed (legitimately) any private colonies in Delhi. Didn%u2019t developed nor allowed to develop. DDA%u2019s more than 35 years report card is that it is able to construct only 5% as planned. It has followed self construction, PPP models & all possible. Now at last the New Master Plan of Delhi has allowed change of land use in agriculture land so that fast, legitimate development can happen.
Private development apart from the area developed by NRDA will give competition to the authority and they will have to act and compete. Shielding NRDA from private competition will nor help NRDA neither the public at large. It will make the authority autocratic, monopoly developer.
We hope our suggestions will help in development of NRDA which is a wonderful concept & it will attract local people to come back from other states and contribute in the Chhattisgarh economy.
Thanking you
Devraj Pandey & Himesh Gupta Village Baroda Raipur (Chhattisgarh)
It is indeed heartwarming to see the kind of responses that the story generated.One should mention that,to start with, getting a consensus on the need for a new capital city or even for a new satellite city was not easy.Deciding on the actual location was the next big issue.And then to get the land !With a powerful land mafia and sundry gold diggers creatingall kinds of hurdles !The people of Raipur and the much maligned politicians need to be complemented for finally putting behind them all real and imagined controversies and supporting Naya Raipur.Some compromises including settling for an innocuose name like Naya Raipur could probably be not helped but the city will become the pride of Chhattisgarh in a few years.There are no doubt other issues to address. Like how to give a distinct identity to the new city, how to take care of environmental problems,how to ensure that we can make it aesthetic and at the same time inclusive(housing for the poor especially the migrant labour needs to be addressed)and many others.Readers may like to convey some of their concerns and suggestions to pjoyoommen@gmail.com P.Joy Oommen,Chairman Naya Raipur Development Authority, Raipur.
RE:Naya Raipur
by on Apr 30, 2007 02:02 PM Permalink
To Mr. P.Joy Oommen, The Chairman Naya Raipur Development Authority NRDA, Raipur (C.G.)
R/ Sir,
This is Kunjan Gupta here from Bangalore working as a Senior Software Engineer in a reputed company. I have gone through the news of setting up new Raipur capital along with an IT SEZ park in Raipur. I have also visited the new Raipur site itself at Mandir Hausod but not seen any work in progress.
Can you pls let me know when the work will start on the grounds instead of files? I am more concerned about IT SEZ Park in Raipur, so that the thousands of Software engineers like me who belong to Chhattisgarh but are working outside of Chhattisgarh because presently there is no IT Company in Chhattisgarh. If IT SEZ will be setup in Raipur, we will think to migrate to our native place. Pls try to implement this project as soon as possible and also create such an environment in whole Raipur %u2013 Chhattisgarh, which can attract Knowledge Industries (like IT, ITES, BPO, BIOTECH).
Pls see the progress of south Indian states like Karnataka, AP Tamilnadu, Kerala and Maharastra states due to Knoweldge industries. Currently, in these states tier-I cities are saturated and now the government and companies setting up IT Park in tier-II cities like Mysore, Belgam, Hubali etc. These states are growing very fast as compared to Chhattisgarh. We should get motivated from Oddisa and Rajasthan, which has setup IT Park in Bhuvaneshwar and Jaipur in very less time and companies like Infosys, Satyam and Mind Tree have established their big offices.
IT industry reduces unemployment very fast and also helps other industries to grow like Airlines, education and hotel industries indirectly.
Pls try to understand our feelings about Chhattisgarh development and let us know when IT SEZ project will be started and would be finished.
Pls do let me know if I can do anything in this direction.
RE:Naya Raipur by on Apr 30, 2007 02:02 PM To Mr. P.Joy Oommen, The Chairman Naya Raipur Development Authority NRDA, Raipur (C.G.)
R/ Sir,
I am Tarun Das,working for a renowned software company in pune,I totally believe that raipur has the full ptential to be more aggressive and better than Pune IT development due to huge natural resources bestowed on us,please set up the Software IT parks in Naya Raipur so that people like can plan to come back
y this people dont think abt BHILAI, its also the part of chattisgarh and have ample space. its a green steel city also. its al coz of bloody politics?
RE:WAT ABT BHILAI ?
by on Oct 22, 2007 01:55 AM Permalink
Hi Tushar I really support ur concern. Bhilai use to be much happenning place before formation of chattisgrah state. Now all due to politics everything is focussed on Raipur. They had promised to create Bhilai as cyber city and now IT SEZ has been planned at Raipur. Bhilai has ample of free space with wide roads and better infrastructure. Plus this city can supply maximum white collar workers. We can find lots of bhilains working in almost all indutsry around the globe. I request the authorities of state to think of balance in development. developing one city to maximum extent and comppletely ignoring the neighbouring is really not done. Just imagine what a world class facility can be established if we try to evolve raipur bhilai durg belt. Please move up from the sheer politics please.
RE:New Raipur
by Joy Oommen on Apr 06, 2007 05:05 PM Permalink
Dear Shri Sadhu, Please keep giving your ideas on how to make Naya Raipur a beautiful and sustainable city. P.Joy Oommen,Chairman NRDA,Raipur.pjoyoommen@gmail.com
