BHUBANESWAR: The much-awaited Baramunda Inter-State Bus Terminal (ISBT) will be readied by October this year, said officials of Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA), the implementation agency of the project. The officials said a new CDP is being worked out while steps are also being taken for the creation of a new city around Gothapatna, on the outskirts of the city. Addressing the 41st foundation day event of the agency, Housing and Urban Development secretary and BDA chairman G Mathivathanan said the Baramunda ISBT project which will help expand BDA’s visibility, is expected to be inaugurated shortly. “BDA should focus on more such big-ticket projects to boost the city’s development and expand its visibility among the public,” Mathivathanan said.
BDA VC Balwant Singh said the ISBT project has reached the completion stage. Accordingly, a facility management agency has also been roped in. “We hope the project will be dedicated in next one-and-a-half months to the public,” Singh said. He said the GIS-based Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) is also being worked out for newly added areas in Bhubaneswar Development Project Area. Citizens’ feedback will be sought on the draft plan after which it will be framed to ensure balanced and sustainable growth of the extended Bhubaneswar. “Planned development activities will be taken up in around 1,500 acre area in near future, while we will also work in peri-urban areas where civic services are yet to reach,” he said.
Singh further said BDA has also planned the development of a new city with 95 per cent government ownership in Daspur and Gothapatana mouzas. The proposed city will give a boost to the economic development of the city. The agency will also ready affordable housing projects in different localities for citizens, especially those affected in infrastructure development projects, he said. BDA secretary Kabindra Kumar Sahoo said six projects of In-Situ Slum Redevelopment (ISSR) and Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP) have been taken up in different parts of the city including Chandrasekharpur, Gadakan, Ghatikia, Shantinagar, Subudhipur for the urban poor. Work of entire 342 units in Subudhipur and 560 flats in Shantinagar has been completed in the first phase, while 800 units have been completed in Chandrasekharpur AHP in the phase-1 project. All these units are under process for allotment and it will be handed over to the eligible urban poor soon, Sahoo said.
Simultaneously, he said, the Nilamadhab Affordable Housing project is in progress and 960 units in the project are likely to be completed by December 2023.
This apart, BDA officials said the government is allowing the private developer to develop 10 per cent mandatory requirements of EWS units and LIG units of their housing projects on government land through BDA to provide dwelling units at an affordable rate of `1,780 per sq feet to lower income group.
Till now BDA has allotted land parcels to four developers for such purpose, officials said. Besides, they said a total 870 residential flats will be allotted to the interested persons on affordable rate in the near future. Mayor Sulochana Das and municipal commissioner Vijay Amruta Kulange also spoke.
Transforming the capital