KOCHI: The much-awaited master plan for Kochi city that has been on the table for discussion for over a decade will soon become a reality. The preliminary outline of the master plan, drawn up by the state town planner, was submitted to the corporation town planning committee at a meeting held here recently. The initial draft plan will be presented before the expert committee for approval during a discussion chaired by the Kochi mayor next month.
“The civic body had attempted to develop a master plan for Kochi in 2002. It was shelved as it came under criticism from the planning stage itself. However, this time, we will finalise the master plan in a time-bound manner. As an initial step, a meeting was convened on Friday to discuss the preliminary outline of the master plan which was presented to the town planning committee, “ said Mayor M Anilkumar. “Our priority now is to develop the areas under the Kochi Corporation. It will then be scaled up to include all other urban agglomerations close to the city,” he added.
According to him, the final draft of the preliminary plan is expected to be completed within the next two or three months. “The master plan is a comprehensive policy guide designed to create a vision of what the city aims to look like in the future. This will require a lot of discussion and suggestions from experts,” said the mayor.
Town planning committee chairman M H M Ashraf said the draft master plan, once completed, will be presented before the council for approval. “We have to also seek a no-objection certificate from the Cochin Port Trust, GIDA and other organisations to move ahead with the project,” he said. According to him, the town planning committee has also put forward a slew of suggestions, which will be included in the draft master plan.