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Nagpur.
The Second Capital City of Nagpur is in for a major facelift chiefly for two reasons. One, the city is hometown of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and his visits would be frequent for one reason or the other. Two, the Winter Session of State Legislature is to start in a month’s time. In this context, the roads and streets are being revamped giving a smooth and shining look that would, undoubtedly, reflect the beautiful face of Nagpur City. And the Chairman of NMC’s Standing Committee Narendra Borkar is making all out efforts in this direction by stressing Single Window System for speedy completion of road construction process.
It would be significant to recall that the development works in the city had got almost stalled following enforcement of Code of Conducts, first for Lok Sabha elections and then Assembly poll. But now the development works would gain momentum with Son of the Soil Devendra Fadnavis at the helm as an added advantage. Moreover, the Winter Session in December will be the first for the ruling BJP. Prestige will be at stake as entire MLAs, Ministers, media from across the State would be camping in the city for over a month. And a beautiful city having smooth and shining roads will certainly send a positive signal.
The Chairman of Standing Committee Borkar further said that a fund of Rs 45 crore is going to be made available for development and repairs of roads. A total of 55 files related to road development have been prepared and the NMC Administration has been asked to submit the files to Standing Committee before November 10. The files will be cleared in the November 13 meeting and sent to the Municipal Commissioner the next day for his signature. Tenders will be called on November 16 and a team of Mayor, Standing Committee Chairman, Municipal Commissioner, concerned Engineers, Chief Accounts and Finance Officer together will pass the tenders. Thereafter, the road works will be started as sson as possible, said Borkar.
The IRDP roads have already made Nagpur a mega city and gave an identity of smooth and shining roads. However, there is no provision of maintenance and repairs in IRDP projects. This drawback has resulted in poor condition of city roads now-a-days.
City in disarray:
Earlier, Nitin Gadkari, now the Union Surface Transport, had announced turning majority of roads into cement concrete ones. However, the ruling party (BJP) in NMC wasted almost five years in planning, road selection, awarding contracts, and other issues. Around three years back, construction of cement roads got started and claims of speedy completion with the help of latest machineries were made. But the cement roads got stalled midway due to disputes between the NMC and the contractors. Now, the costly machineries are gathering dust and the stalled roads are being used by ‘ haath thelas’ and vehicles for parking. But with Nitin Gadkari as Union Surface Transport Minister and Devendra Fadnavis as Chief Minister plus BJP the ruling party in NMC, things are in a major change, of course for better.
