Much-awaited City Development Plan okays after 33 years

Lokmat News Network

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:

The development of the city will soon gain momentum as the City Development Plan, which was lying in pendency for the last 33 years, was presented in the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation (CSMC) on Wednesday evening. The state’s appointed officer on special duty (OSD) Shrikant Deshmukh submitted the rough draft of the plan to the municipal commissioner G Sreekanth for further process.

The plan will be published and displayed for public notice on Thursday. It may be noted that for one or the other reason the plan was not being finalised in the last eight years.

Presently, the municipal corporation is using two development plans. One plan is of the old city and another is of the extended part of the city. Besides, the Cidco and MIDC had also prepared independent development plans as they were also ‘Planning Authorities’ in the past.

It may be noted that the Development Plan has not been prepared since the expansion of the city limits in 2001. In 2015-16, the state government ordered to prepare the DP Plan. When the rough draft was made, the issue went into the Supreme Court as the public representatives failed to implement the DP rules. Two years ago, the state government announced the preparation of an integrated DP Plan comprising the old city and the extended city.

Accordingly, the state government constituted a development plan (DP) Unit under the leadership of Town Planning Officer Raza Khan. In April 2023, he prepared and submitted the Existing Land Use (ELU) maps to the administrator. However, when the rough draft of the plan was being prepared, the state deployed Shrikant Deshmukh as OSD. The issue of appointment is still pending in the Supreme Court.

Deshmukh prepared the rough draft of the plan and submitted it to the municipal commissioner on Wednesday night in the presence of the city engineer A B Deshmukh, deputy director (Town Planning) Manoj Garje, deputy commissioners Somnath Jadhav and Nanda Gaikwad, executive engineer K M Phalak, DP Units town planners and other civic officers.

New direction to the city: G Sreekanth

After accepting the rough draft of the plan, the civic chief G Sreekanth said, “ It was unfortunate that the city development plan was lying pending for so many years. The development of the city was halted and its expansion became directionless. The dispute over the plan also went to the Supreme Court. This is also unfortunate for the city. The city will now get a new direction to progress. No development plan pleases everyone.”

Suggestions and Objections

The OSD and his DP-Unit submitted two copies of the plan in a sealed envelope to the civic chief. It will be displayed at the CSMC headquarters and various places. Later on, the objections and suggestions will be invited from the citizens on it. Later on, the hearings will be held on them and then the plan will be finalised.

Believe it or not, the launching of many big housing projects got delayed due to the absence of the plan. There were no marking of land reservations and development of roads and their widening works were also stopped. The city witnessed the development of many localities on all four sides of the city due to the absence of planning. There was no availability of land for public utilities. Hence the new plan will resolve many problems for sure, it is hoped.