Maharashtra?s town planning agency, City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), is planning to build perhaps the largest city in the country ? even bigger than Mumbai and its suburbs put together.
The new planned city called ?Naina? or Navi Mumbai Airport Influence Notified Area is expected to be spread over 600 sq kms or 60,000 hectares, which is good 8,000 hectares more than the 52,000 hectares area occupied by Mumbai and its suburbs, and almost double the size of Navi Mumbai (320 sq km or 32,000 hectares), the first planned township of Mumbai.
The size of the city can also be gauged from the fact that it is expected to house a population of 80 lakh in the next 30 years. Though no official estimates have been reached on the cost of developing this new city, the development cost will be roughly around R3,500 per sq m (about R2.1 lakh crore), a senior CIDCO official told FE. This will include development of metro line and roads, etc, and will be spread around a radial distance of about 25 kms from the proposed airport in Navi Mumbai.
CIDCO hopes to take up the development for this new city in two phases, Sanjay Bhatia, vice-chairman and managing director, CIDCO, said at The Express Group?s Idea Exchange programme on Thursday. In the first phase 7,000 hectares would be taken up for development, for which a detailed plan is being prepared, Bhatia said. The development for the second phase of 53,000 hectares, would be taken up after five years. Currently, CIDCO has invited tenders for getting the survey for the city done, which will take five to six months to complete.
Naina is a result of the conditions that the Union environment and forest ministry had set in November 2010, when it gave clearance for Navi Mumbai International Airport. The ministry had stipulated that master plan and development plan of Navi Mumbai shall be revised and recast in view of the airport development, to avoid unplanned haphazard growth around the proposed airport.
At present, the proposed city of Naina has 270 villages in the six talukas of Thane, Uran, Karjat, Pen, Khalapur and Panvel of the Thane and Raigad districts. Naina is being developed through a new voluntary model, India?s first partcipatory model for a city development, which will not involve any acquisition of land. People will be invited to give their lands for the development of the city in return for which CIDCO will be offering them some incentives.