Nagpur: Even as the people of Nagpur cheers for their city making it in the list of Smart Cities, they have now pinned their hopes on betterment of various civic amenities that deadly need attendance. The authorities decided to give the status of Smart City on the basis of Electronics, Ecology and Education. However, the pathetic condition of very basic amenities still bothers the citizens of Nagpur.
Nagpur Today presents a checklist of few of the development aspects that are currently in their worst shape.
Roads
Gold Rate
24 April 2025
Almost every road of Nagpur is in a deplorable and pathetic state. Potholes mark every major or minor road. Many road accidents have occurred only because of these deplorable roads. Two-wheeler riders are the worst hit victims because of the poor roads. Either the loose gravel causes them to skid and fall down or the vehicle jumps over after hitting a pothole. Two-wheeler riders are also known to have come under the wheels of heavy vehicles when they attempt to avoid the potholes.
Work of making cement roads is in full swing on many important roads. However this too is causing many problems to the road users. One side of the road is completely blocked causing the vehicular traffic on either sides to clutter on the same road. This results in heavy traffic jams and chaos on many spots. Even after completing the work of laying a cement road, the work of fixing or laying inter-lock bricks is going on at snail’s pace.
Sewage & drains
The sewage and the drains need to be re-planned and newer pipelines have to be laid. Former Municipal Commissioner T Chandrasekhar had widened many roads, constructed rain-water drains on both the sides of the road, yet our civic authorities could not maintain it and many sweepers dumped garbage into the drain causing the rain water drains to get choked up. Sewage lines have either broken down and as a result, gutter water is seeing and flowing onto the roads.
Public Transport system
Nagpur city has one of the worst public transport systems. The city bus service is atrocious. One cannot rely on the buses and its timings. The city buses ply at so erratic timings that citizens are led to utilize the services of auto-rickshaws etc to reach their destinations on time. So bad is the coordination among the various departments in the civic administration that we can’t even offer a proper city bus-stand from where these buses can operate. The city buses have to stop on the main road near Rani Jhansi Square or Variety Square. Often a bus starting from the spot or arriving at the spot causes traffic jams.
People Speak
While speaking to Nagpur Today, a leading architect and builder opined that Nagpur is not yet ready for even the Metro rail. Crores of rupees are being pumped into the Metro Rail project. However, feasibility of this metro rail is not clear. Will our general populace grow up to maintain this infrastructure and even the metro rail?
The road users who traverse the Variety Square or the Rani Jhansi Square experience on a day-to-day basis how the pedestrians cross the roads without any traffic discipline. On many counts, Nagpur citizens are yet to grow-up to availing the facilities.
While speaking to Nagpur Today, a leader with BJP on condition of anonymity said that till we improve various civic amenities, we should not venture into any of these wasteful expenditures. He claimed that NMC is already facing financial crisis and is not able to meet various urgent expenses, how can it even think of managing the allied expenses that will arise with building the new infrastructure? Till such time as when there is a streamlining made for a steady revenue generation and collection, the funds for improvement of Nagpur from State Government is made, no infrastructure should be build.
By Samuel Gunasekharan
