An aerial view of Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, July 18: The area under the Bhubaneswar Development Authority’s jurisdiction has increased from 419sqkm to almost 1,000sqkm with 351 more villages being brought under its fold.

At a decision taken on Saturday, places such as Pipili and Delanga will come under the jurisdiction of the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA). With this, the total number of villages under the authority’s fold has gone up from 205 to 556.

On December 18 last year, the development authority had notified inclusion of 367 villages in pursuance of Rule 3 of the Orissa Development Authorities Rules, 1983, inviting objections and suggestions from people. Later, it came to the notice that 16 villages in that list actually fell under the Cuttack Development Authority (CDA).

Therefore, they were struck off the list. The new additions will have 263 villages from Khurda and 88 from Puri district.

A meeting chaired by chief secretary Bijay Kumar Patnaik also asked senior BDA officials to take up planning of these areas with immediate effect. The authority was specifically asked to lay emphasis on infrastructure development, identification of institutional area, green belts and conservation of waterbodies.

Sources said earlier the developmental drive had been largely restricted to the Phulanakhara-Khurda stretch. However, with the expansion of the surrounding areas, the development zone would form a circle like structure.

While in north, it would include villages such as, Bhagda, Paikirapur, Barbati and Talabast, in south, it would have Chhatrama, Bijipur and Mukundpur.

Likewise in the east it would have Dorabanga, Danahara and Saheb Nagar while Dadhimachh Gadia, Somanathpur and Talagada in the west.

Planning member of the BDA Prashant Kumar Patnaik said: “Immediately we will go for a comprehensive development plan of the newly included area. This will help to undertake detailed micro-level planning by adopting the zonal development plan, which has already started.”

Senior member of the Real Estate Developers’ Association, Orissa, Anup Mohapatra, said: “In fact, the expansion plan was the part of a strategy to stop grant of illegal permissions to apartment complexes by the block development officers. Though the ban on building plan approval was effective in BDA area, development officers continued to approve plans on the outskirts of the city. With the increase in the plan area, this will be curbed.”

However, he said there would be an immediate increase in land price in the newly added area as many real estate players were trying to woo people with false promises.

“If square foot rate on the outskirts is varying between Rs 120 and Rs 350, it may go up by Rs 30-50 within days as most developers are playing with people’s sentiment citing the authority’s development plan, which, though, won’t happen immediately,” he said.

“Even flood zones between the twin cities of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar are included in the housing zones turning this zone into a ‘concrete slum’ devoid of any planning or pattern. It might be streamlined now with the expansion of the BDA plan area.

President of Orissa chapter of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association, India, D.S. Tripathy said: “The increase in the authority’s area would mean better infrastructure planning for 20 to 30 years. But, the pace of planning should be accelerated. The current pace of infrastructure provision by the development authority is very slow and there should be an effort to accelerate it as there will be increased demand for drainage and sewerage also.”

On the possibility of increase in land prices, Tripathy said: “In fact, there will not be any significant hike as the prices in Bhubaneswar are already on the higher side.”