When Chhattisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000, Raipur found the spotlight turned on itself?it was suddenly the state capital but had very little in the name of infrastructure. A government hospital was turned into the Mantralaya and the state held its first assembly session in a make-shift tent in a school ground. Later, the building that housed the Rajiv Gandhi Watershed Mission and Research Centre was converted into the state assembly. The district circuit house became Raj Bhawan and the collector?s bungalow the chief minister?s residence.

Today, like most other Indian cities and town, Raipur is an urban mess. Vehicles find their way through the crowded city centre on the sheer strength of their blaring horns and the water and sewage system is on the brink of collapse. Black dust from the sponge iron plants on the city?s fringes hangs over the city?s air.

It was Ajit Jogi, the state?s first chief minister, who came up with the idea of a new city. In March 2003, Congress president Sonia Gandhi laid the foundation stone at Pauta village, about 20 km from the present city. The BJP government, which came to power in the December 2003 elections, initially had reservations. But the present Raman Singh government excluded Pauta village, where Sonia Gandhi had laid the foundation, but decided to go ahead with the capital plan.

?Naya Raipur?, wedged between NH-6 and NH-43 and 6 km from the state?s Mana airport, is a burst of green. Town planners say they propose to keep it that way, with one-fourth of the city?s total area as green cover. The city will have 2,500 hectares of public places, parks and landscaped greens.

The New Raipur Development Authority (NRDA) is the nodal agency for implementing the project. N Baijendra Kumar, NDRA vice-chairman and the state?s Principal Secretary, says the bulk of the projects in Naya Raipur will come up on the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model. M/s CES, New Delhi, and City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), Navi Mumbai, have been chosen as the prime consultants for preparing the Master Plan. Three construction companies, IVRCL Infrastructure and Project Limited, Mumbai; ERA Infra Engineering Limited and RAMKEY Infrastructure Limited, besides a host of other companies, have won contracts for key building projects in the new city.

Work on the Rs 180-crore state secretariat is on in full swing. ?We plan to shift the Mantralaya by November 2011. Land has already been earmarked for the Vidhan Sabha and the Raj Bhawan, which will be shifted in the second phase,? said NRDA Chief Executive Officer SS Bajaj.

Naya Raipur, with a proposed road length of 225 kilometres, will be the first green-field city in India to have dedicated bus lanes. Like Putrajaya, the city will have a ?grid-pattern plan?, in which streets run at right angles to each other.

The city is also being promoted as a knowledge hub. The Hidayatullah National Law University (HNLU), a premier state-run law school, has already moved into its new campus in Naya Raipur. Besides, 200 acres have been allotted for the proposed Indian Institute of Management (IIM) near Pauta village, bringing this area back to the new capital zone. NRDA has also allotted land to the National Thermal Power Corporation to set up an Indian Institute of Information & Technology (IIIT).

NRDA has acquired about 90% of the land required for the project. Of this, the Authority purchased 3,200 hectares of private land from farmers at a rate of Rs 10 lakh per acre and granted them a stamp duty exemption for purchase of land elsewhere. Plus, 2,777 hectares of government land have already been transferred to NRDA. Only 220 hectares have been acquired under the Land Acquisition Act.

By 2031, the town planners say, Naya Raipur will be a full-fledged city with an estimated population of 5.6 lakh. The Railways has agreed to lay a new line and set up a new station in Naya Raipur. The new capital will also have air connectivity as it is a seven-minute drive to the present Mana airport, which is also being upgraded.