Friday, February 8, 2013

Tomorrow's City Today - Bellagio Conference Report

On 12-14 September 2012, I joined a group of urban professionals in Bellagio, Italy for a conference called "Tomorrow's city today". This was sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. My air fare was also sponsored by them. The conference tried to find common frameworks and standards to compare different cities of the world that are moving towards sustainable cities, eco friendly cities.
The report has just been finalised. My hard coy s on its way from UK by post. Meanwhile the soft copy was emailed to me today. This can be seen at:
http://www.westminster.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/198358/Bellagio_Spreads_PDF-Version__28.1.13-12.pdf
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Today morning, I went to the site where the work of internal road started in Action Area III. This 1 km long road of New Town will connect the MAR of AA-III to the site of NSG Hub. The starting point of the road is near the proposed site of Wipro and opposite the Arts Acre Foundation coming up. Here is a photo:
Another Road in Action Area III starts today
"Will be completed by 4 months"
Posted by at

11 comments:

  1. AbhishekFebruary 9, 2013 at 2:54 AM

    New Road is always a good one. Can we extend this 1 km road to connect to Basanti Highway? Is this currently planned till Hatisala Panchayet Road?

    AA3 is still almost completely vacant and it is supposed to be one of the most bursting hubs of New Town.

    Other than Infy and Wipro, can we push the other institutes who have taken up land in AA3 ( including the Govt institutes , IIT Kgp , ITC Infotech, SINP-VECC and St Xaviers) to start work soon. As of now, it looks like acres and acres of farm land lying vacant.

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    1. AbhishekFebruary 9, 2013 at 3:50 AM

      I was trying to find out how wide the road is going to be. Went to the Archived section of tenders of HIDCO website. Found this: http://www.wbhidcoltd.com/notice/NIT-19_2012-13_GM%28E%29-I.pdf

      This road is going to be 7.5 m i.e less than 25 feet wide !!!!! Sir, in a futuristic township like NewTown, cant we have little wider roads? In Kolkata, we always talk about having only 6% road space and we are again going for narrow roads in New Town !!!!

      This was depressing.

      Delete
  2. UnknownFebruary 9, 2013 at 10:22 AM

    If you see the master plan, you will see that the road is 15+ m wide. There is NO road in New Town which is less than 10m, even in the densest residential area. So don't get unnecessarily depressed without knowing full facts, Abhisekh!
    Since sewerage work underground is going on, the other lane will be taken up once the ug works are completed. But the idea was to open up connectivity as fast as possible, in phases.This road will provide connectivity to the NSG Hub

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    1. AbhishekFebruary 9, 2013 at 4:10 PM

      Thanks a lot Sir..... That was really a soothing answer. :-)

      Delete
  3. UnknownFebruary 9, 2013 at 12:11 PM

    Mentioning SINP VECC, any news on the synchrotron centre land which the government was citing their inability to give? There is no news about it these days.

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    1. AbhishekFebruary 9, 2013 at 4:09 PM

      Govt is telling that they have land in Kalyani for AIIMS but not for synchrotron centre.

      Delete
    2. UnknownFebruary 10, 2013 at 9:49 AM

      That means we wont get it here in Bengal :(

      Delete
  4. UnknownFebruary 10, 2013 at 11:33 AM

    During my recent visit to Durgapur, I saw a huge 700 acre (or so) compact land of HFCL (a Govt of India Enterprise), very near the 6-lane National Highway-2 (Delhi Road). The unit is closed for more than twenty years.

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    1. UnknownFebruary 10, 2013 at 8:40 PM

      Sir, it would be fantastic if that land can be given for the prestigious synchrotron project and all parties agree to it....

      Delete
    2. AbhishekFebruary 11, 2013 at 3:04 AM

      If the land is free from litigation ( which is rare in Bengal), not only the synchrotron centre but it can contribute to Govt Land Bank also.

      700 acres is huge. Not for capital intensive manufacturing plants / steel plants / thermal power plants which employ much less people but for a huge education and research hub and we can even invite foreign universities like Stanford / Oxford who are scouting for land in India.

      If that is too big a dream, at least we can accomodate a whole bunch of software companies / BPOs there to create a second big employment zone that will permanently change Rarh Bengal.

      Delete
  5. UnknownFebruary 11, 2013 at 11:23 AM

    I hope this land is immediately made available and it remains in the government radar for industrial projects. Most importantly, hope this land is not given again to real estate to create massive housing complexes. As Abhishek said, creating a second zone of employment would be a fantastic development

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