Experts have questioned the move of Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) to develop the Patna Junction area by adopting retrofitting model under the smart city mission plan. Under the retrofitting model, the development of the existing infrastructure over an area more than 500 acres can be taken up.
The municipal corporation has uploaded the plan on the Union government's www.mygov.in and also on PMC's Facebook and Twitter accounts to seek citizen's feedback.
S.N. Choudhary (71), the retired chief town planner, questioned the PMC's proposal of making a hawker-free zone near the Patna Junction area which it has included in the smart city mission plan.
"Making hawker-free zone means the corporation is contemplating rehabilitating them at somewhere else but the irony is that PMC still has not identified the number of hawkers so how is it going to rehabilitate them? For example, if it is going to create a vendors' zone for around 200 hawkers at some place, what if 200 more hawkers come and ask for providing them space in the vendors zone? So the corporation first needs to get its homework done by identifying the total number of hawkers," said Choudhary, who retired in 2004.
The corporation's plan of making pedestrian-friendly zone under its smart city mission plan also looks a distant dream.
"The footpaths in the state capital have already been encroached upon by makeshift stalls. Even if the corporation makes footpaths and pedestrian-friendly zones, I have doubts whether they would remain in their original form for long," added Choudhary.
Choudhary said he had also very little faith in the corporation's plan of redeveloping the Bakri Bazaar area under the redevelopment model. The model allows complete redevelopment of an existing area of 50 acres.
"Former chief minister Bhagwat Jha Azad had also got the area vacated during his tenure. The vacated space was left as it is for a very long duration and after few years the vendors again captured the space. Instead of making such plans, the corporation should take measures to ensure cleanliness in the area concerned and in fact the whole city. The proper disposal of solid waste, maintenance of sewage networks and others should be given priority," said Choudhary.
Sanjeev Sinha, dean, planning and development, National Institute of Technology, Patna, questioned the PMC's proposal of removing vehicle conflict points and developing certain areas as vehicle-free in the Patna Junction area under the smart city plan.
"Removing vehicle conflict points and making vehicle-free stretches in Patna Junction aims to regulate traffic in the area. I welcome the proposal but there are certain side-effects which I can foresee. If PMC removes the vehicle conflict points in certain areas, it would affect the traffic flow in the other areas. The traffic flow should be treated as running water in pipe. If the pipe is irregular in shape and broken at some points, then it would affect the water output. Similarly, if traffic is regulated only in a certain point in the city, it would further affect the traffic flow in the other areas. There should not be any isolation when formulating traffic plan," said Sinha.
Commenting on PMC's proposal of improving parking area for private vehicles in the Patna Junction area, he said: "There is already a multi-storey parking in the Patna Junction area. The facility is partially used as one can see only 20-25 vehicles parked in the facility though more vehicles could be parked there. The main problem lies in the approach road of the parking facility. One would face a lot of problem in parking his/her vehicle in the parking lot because both sides' approach road has not been made in a proper way. I appreciate PMC's smart city proposal regarding removing vehicle points and creating more parking space but the civic body has to adopt more comprehensive approach while forming plans for making the city smart," said Sinha.
PMC commissioner Abhishek Singh said the smart city mission draft plan which had been uploaded on the Union government website was not the final one, rather it would have further modifications as per citizen's feedback and experts' suggestion.
"As far as our plan of making a hawker-free zone is concerned, the National Street Vendors' Association of India has already identified the actual number of vendors in the city and they have provided the detail to us. We have started issuing ID cards to the vendors. We are planning to get a five-storied building for accommodating the vendors on the lines of Gangtok and Thailand where such high-rise buildings have been created for accommodating vendors. As far as the traffic regulation plan is concerned, we have uploaded only one part of our plan. We are working on a detailed plan on regulating traffic in the state capital and further modifications in the plan would be made in the next one month because we still have a month's time to make the final plan," said Singh.
Singh said like the traffic-related plan in the smart city proposal, further modifications will also be made in the plan of making pedestrian-free zones and improving parking area for private vehicles.
