Maharashtra embraces Modi’s ‘Smart City’ concept

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, December 20

The Devendra Fadnavis government in Maharashtra has embraced Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Smart City’ concept and is preparing to roll out 134 such projects across the state in coming years.

Earlier, the state Cabinet proposed amendment to the Maharashtra Regional Town Planning Act under which all ‘special townships’ in the state would be reclassified as ‘integrated townships’ so that they come under the ‘smart city’ category.

“An integrated township will have a minimum of 100 acres of land of which 20 per cent would be reserved for economic activity,” an official of the Urban Development Department said. The government would establish new development control rules for the integrated townships that would be developed by private developers, he said.

Sources said a clutch of integrated townships are planned in and around Mumbai. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority has mooted five regions outside the city — Vasai-Virar, Bhiwandi, Greater Kalyan, Greater Panvel and Pen-Alibaug which fall along the proposed 126-km Virar-Alibaug Multi Modal Corridor.

“Development plans for these areas are still being prepared but they will be developed as smart cities,” UPS Madan, CMD, MMRDA said. Within Mumbai itself, the MMRDA is planning to transform Wadala and Oshiwara as integrated townships with components of a smart city.

New integrated townships have also been mooted around half-a-dozen ports that are set to be developed in the coming years. Some of the ports such as Shendre and Bidkin in the Konkan fall along the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and would have comparatively larger townships, said sources.

The MMRDA is also working on reconfiguring existing townships into smart cities. The Bandra-Kurla Complex in suburban Mumbai will be the first to be reconfigured into a smart city.