Environment

We put this above all else, because this year will be our big battle in the war against air pollution. Calcutta High Court has banned all two-stroke autos from January 1. But the deadline has run into roadblocks galore, with politicians going into reverse gear and unions revving in revolt.

Two-stroke autos are supposed to go off the road from Thursday, four-stroke autos plying within municipal limits have been told to switch to clean fuel by March 31, and those in greater Calcutta will have to convert to LPG by December 31. If this is achieved, the city will breathe far more easy this year.

A drive to clean up the Hooghly is also on the cards. The environment department has said Puja idols must henceforth be lead-free.

Infrastructure

From waterlogging-free streets to fast-track corridors, flyovers to state-of-the-art facilities for fliers, new Metro Railway routes to market makeovers — 2009 promises to be a landmark year for development of infrastructure in Calcutta.

The long-awaited Tollygunge-New Garia section of Metro Railway — an 8.7km stretch with six stations — is likely to be opened in March. On the other side of town, work will begin on the East-West Metro project from Salt Lake to Howrah.

Flyovers will be the flavour of the construction season. The Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority has planned a flyover from the Beleghata intersection to Captain’s Bheri on the EM Bypass to end traffic snarls at the Chingrihata intersection. The 16-metre flyover will stand on a single pier and straddle the Rajarhat bridge.

Another flyover will connect Vivekananda Road to Howrah via Kalikrishna Tagore Street and Old Mint on Strand Road. One arm of the bridge will lead to Nimtalaghat Street. The Rs 153-crore project, a part of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, is to be completed in 18 months.

The AJC Bose Road flyover, the city’s longest, will finally get the two ramps that were sanctioned in 2005. Two box bridges will come up in AL and GE blocks of Salt Lake to relieve the pressure on JK Saha bridge and reduce the time it takes to reach Sector V.

The Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) has lined up a slew of projects, and set end-2009 as the deadline for the completion of ones that are underway. VIP Market will undergo a makeover along with CMC properties in Ballygunge, Belvedere Road, Behala and Mullickbazar. Four drainage pumping stations will be set up in Behala, which bears the brunt of monsoon flooding every year.

Six markets that were handed over to Bidhannagar Municipality by the urban development department in 2008 — in AB-AC, AE, CA, CK, EC and BD blocks — will be renovated.

Most of the upgrade planned under the Rs 2,100-crore modernisation project for Calcutta airport will be completed in 2009. The secondary runway will be extended by 360 metres and an Instrument Landing System installed there to take the pressure off the primary runway. A special inline baggage screening system will replace the X-ray machines.

Sector V will get its own water supply network. The beautification project undertaken by the tech hub’s administrative body, Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority, along with two companies, is expected to be completed this year.

An electronic surveillance system comprising 20 CCTVs will also be in place. The flyover being constructed to ease traffic flow at the Wipro crossing will be operational by March.

Education

The new hostel and academic complex of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, will become operational this year. The stipend of doctoral students will go up. They will also get an annual contingency grant and teaching assistantships.

Studying at the oldest B-school in the country, IISWBM, will become costlier. Fees for the two-year MBA course will go up by Rs 50,000 to Rs 4.36 lakh.

Up to five colleges affiliated to Calcutta University are set to earn UGC’s centre of excellence tag. The controller’s of the university’s departments will relocate from College Street to a new building on the Alipore campus. The university will also launch a one-year postgraduate course in comparative studies of post-Independence experiences of China and India, in collaboration with Kunming University of China.

Jadavpur University will start its school of nuclear studies and postgraduate courses in geography and education. It will receive grants worth crores under the second phase of the Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme of the World Bank.

Health

Wockhardt’s 350-bed, super-speciality hospital off EM Bypass will start operations in the second quarter of 2009. AMRI Hospitals will launch a 250-bed mother and child care hospital at Mukundapur. Apollo Hospital is also slated to start a 50-bed oncology unit on campus.

In the government sector, RG Kar Medical College and Hospital and Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital will upgrade their cardiology and dialysis units.

Information Technology

The Wipro and Infosys SEZs will mature and take shape in 2009, according to IT department officials. The government has acquired 100 acres in Kalyani for developing an SEZ in collaboration with the private sector.

Work on the 2,600sq ft India Design Centre, a hub of the semiconductor industry, will begin in Sector V in 2009. Two to four finishing schools will come up across the state.

Housing

The real estate bubble burst in 2008 and the tremors will continue to be felt this year. Demand has slumped and prices have been slashed. There are hopes of a slow revival in the second half of the year.

At Rajarhat, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s showpiece township, a thousand more residents are set to move into the seven housing estates in New Town’s Action Area I. Three new housing estates are expected to come up in Action Area III.

Malls

Several malls will be completed in 2009. The list includes The Terminus, Axis Mall and City Centre II in New Town, with a combined retail space of 12,30,000sq ft. Forum, on Elgin Road, will expand during the year. The mall, which opened on March 7, 2003, will extend to The Courtyard, a 40,000sq ft space with five parking levels.

Multiplexes

Movie mania will grow in 2009 with INOX theatres coming up at City Centre 2 at Rajarhat in the first half, followed by Jessore Road and Howrah in the second half of the year. The Fame chain is planning to cross the river and head into Howrah.

For the existing plexes, driving footfalls through events and promotions will be the mantra this year.

INOX will host art and photography exhibitions, rock band auditions and a host of other activities. It is planning to ramp up its technology quotient to facilitate both offsite and onsite ticket booking services. INOX Swabhumi will introduce complete meals.

Fame is planning to roll out national campaigns like free vacation offers and free merchandise with food and beverage purchase. Fame will also be pushing its value-added services through kiosks, the Fame website, IVR (landline number ticketing service which can be used from both mobile and landline) & NGPAY (mobile ticketing service).

That size does matter even on the big screen will be proved when the IMAX theatre shows The Dark Knight from January 9. In the 450-seater hall at the Mani Square mall, the screen is roughly 10 times bigger (64 ft x 86 ft) than other plex screens with enhanced images and a 12,000-watt sound system.

Cable

More than 30 per cent of the 25 lakh cable homes are expected to opt for digitalisation by switching to the set-top box for better picture and sound quality. Some will migrate to direct-to-home (DTH) services. With the DTH market becoming more competitive, consumers can expect better packages. Interactive games and video-on-demand will gain currency. There are no plans for expansion of CAS.

Tech Tools

Apple’s footprint in the city will expand. Imagine, the premium Apple store at City Centre, will open a branch at City Centre II in Rajarhat and another in south Calcutta.

Great Eastern Technocity will open an 8,000sq ft outlet in Nagerbazar by January-end, modelled on its store on Sarat Bose Road.

Hitachi and Sony are expected to launch super-thin OLED TVs, the next big thing in visual technology.

High-speed Internet on mobile phones will become a reality with the launch of 3G services.

Action on the IPTV front should hot up with Airtel and Reliance joining the fray.

Astronomy

Space enthusiasts and skygazers can look forward to hobnobbing with the stars in 2009 with the United Nations declaring it the International Year of Astronomy to commemorate 400 years of Galileo observing the solar system through a telescope.

MP Birla Planetarium and amateur astronomy organisations and trusts in the city will take part in the global celebrations with year-long programmes involving students, teachers and enthusiasts.

The year is also special as the country will witness a total solar eclipse on July 22. North Bengal will experience a total eclipse and Calcutta will see a partial one, where the moon will cover more than 90 per cent of the sun. The next total solar eclipse in India will occur almost three decades later.

Calcutta can also look forward to a partial solar eclipse on January 26 and a partial lunar eclipse on December 31. Scientists expect the occasional meteor shower to light up the night sky this year too.

Puja calendar

Durga puja is in late September. Starting from September 25 (Saptami), Puja will take place over the usual four days. Sadly, this includes a weekend this year.

That leaves Kali puja and Diwali to light up October. But here too the office-goer will be robbed of a holiday as Kali puja falls on October 17, a Saturday.

What do you want in Calcutta 2009? Tell ttmetro@abpmail.com