Bhubaneswar, Feb. 8: The proposed Odisha Capital Region Development Authority will be named Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Metropolitan Development Authority and is likely to cover an area around 3,000sqkm.
While the present area under the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) and Cuttack Development Authority (CDA) is around 1,700sqkm, an additional 1,300sqkm will be added to this to accommodate around 60 to 80 lakh people over the next 30 to 35 years. At present, the Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Development Plan area accounts for a population of 25 lakh in these two cities.
The state government feels that the metropolitan development authority will not really have a metro character until its population is around 70 lakh.
The metropolitan development authority will be planned on the line of cities such as New Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Calcutta.
The 74th amendment of Indian Constitution also allows urban areas with a a population of more than 10 lakh to go for metropolitan development authorities for better regional planning and development.
'Public transport system will be in focus. But in the first place, dedicated bus lanes will be created to ensure greater frequency of city buses to carry people from one place to another,' Bhubaneswar Development Authority vice-chairman Krishan Kumar told The Telegraph.
According to urban development parameters, the introduction of a metro service needs at least 40,000 persons-per-hour-per-direction. Likewise, for a bus rapid transport service (BRTS), the number is 15,000 to 18,000 and for dedicated bus lane, it is 8,000.
'As yet, we don't need BRTS. Hence, we have decided to create dedicated bus lanes that could be upgraded to BRTS later. We need to focus on the frequency of city buses first,' Kumar said.
Infrastructure development in the metropolitan development authority area with better roads and land banks needs land procurement.
It could be more effectively done with the schemes such as town planning and transfer of development rights coming into force and the government is going to implement them very soon.
While in town planning scheme, land will be pooled from people and returned to them for developing infrastructure, in transfer of development rights, for submission of a portion of land for a development project in a particular location, the landowner can get development rights or relaxation in building regulations in another location.
For the funds requirement to realise the infrastructure support base of the metropolitan development authority, the senior bureaucrat said: 'Apart from creating a development fund, the metropolitan development authority can also get money from selling a portion of land after developing them under town planning scheme.'
Under the town-planning scheme, land will be taken from landowners and after developing them, a portion (say 60 per cent area) will be returned. From the remaining 40 per cent, while 30 per cent will be dedicated for infrastructure, 10 per cent can be sold by the metropolitan development authority to arrange for funds.
The tax-based funds collection can be implemented in more areas and provisions such as property tax can be made so that the respective civic bodies of the twin cities are able to collect more funds for development.
'In fact, in the town planning scheme, even after a landowner gets 60 per cent of the developed land in return, the new land will fetch him nearly 20 times more than the original land price as the land will come up with all modern amenities. In this method, a monetary transaction is not needed, but both the sides get the benefits,' said the BDA vice-chairman.
President of the Association for Odisha Real-estate Developers Umesh Patnaik said: 'Regional planning for the metropolitan development authority should be properly done and the implementation is also very vital.'
