Picture by Ashwinee Pati
Bhubaneswar, Aug. 28: Commuters negotiating road congestion will get to move around the city smoothly once the development authority executes the ambitious ring road project here.
The 60m-wide ring road will connect major locations, including Nandankanan in the north, Pahala in the east, Dhauli in the south and Tomando in the west.
The Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) has moved a step ahead to execute the plan. It has modified a comprehensive development plan and issued a notification for land to be acquired for the project.
According to the modified notification, the project will affect nearly 50,000 people in 67 mouzas of the city.
"We have issued the notification and asked people to approach us with their objections or suggestions. Such a process is usual before land acquisition for any government projects. They can come to our offices till the end of September. We will only carry on with the land acquisition after that," said a development authority official.
The authority issued the notification on its official website and through various newspaper advertisements on July 9.
Sources said the proposed 65km ring road would require 760 acres. Of that, about 690 acres is private land, while the rest belongs to the government. The development authority will spend nearly Rs 1,200 crore to execute the ambitious project.
Last year, the authority had got the go-ahead from the general administration department to acquire 50.416 acres from 13 revenue villages - 12 in Khurda district and one in Puri - for the project.
"The ring road will mainly pass through the city outskirts," said the official. However, he said the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) was yet to approve the project.
The state government has written to the NHAI headquarters in New Delhi a number of times. An NHAI official here said it was not under their purview to approve the project and it had to be done at the headquarters level.
The authority also plans to implement the Transferable Development Right (TDR) rules and the town planning scheme in the proposed project. The town planning scheme came into force in September last year, while the TDR rules were introduced in July last year.
According to the new rules, landowners will be provided with TDR certificates in exchange of the land acquired for government projects.
The rules say land losers will get a certificate instead of the financial package that used to be given earlier. The TDR certificates can be used to get same size land from the BDA anywhere in the city. They can also sell the certificates to interested buyers or real estate developers. If the land losers declined to take TDR certificates, they would be compensated according to the government rate of land value.
"The ring road will be a boon for citizens, as it will cut down the travel time between Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. It will also ensure access to city destinations without having to pass through the national highway. Hope the project takes off soon," said Palasuni resident Priyabrata Mishra.
BDA vice-chairman Krishan Kumar said: "We have come up with a list of land patches to be acquired for the project and submitted the same to the government. The land acquisition is a lengthy process, for which we need to start the work as early as possible. We hope of getting the approval from the NHAI shortly and go ahead with land acquisition."