BHUBANESWAR: While the Housing and Urban Development Department is geared up for making the Capital City smart, the long standing demand for setting up a logistics park (Transport Nagar) did not find a place in the initial draft of the Smart City project.
Even though inclusion of a logistic park in the prospective Smart City plan will boost Bhubaneswar’s chances in capturing a spot in the list of first 20 smart cities, the Smart City project’s budget prepared by Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has no funds earmarked for a goods handling enclosure in the Capital City.
The warehouses in Mancheswar and Palasuni contribute about 50 per cent of the goods transported daily in the State. As these places are located close to National Highway-5, traffic snarls have been a common sight here.
Transport sector in Bhubaneswar handles goods worth `100 crore everyday to and from different parts of the country. Around 500 vehicles of different categories and sizes transport materials from the Capital City.
The Commissionerate of Police has imposed restriction on entry of heavy vehicles to the City from 8 am to 10 pm for which trucks can be seen parked on the side of NH-5. It not only congests the highway, 14 working hours are wasted with goods-laden vehicles stranded idle.
‘Transport Nagar’ can accommodate all heavy vehicles freeing National Highways. Theft of goods, laden in trucks, can be checked if vehicles are parked inside the logistics park. Moreover, the vehicles would no more be detained along highways.
The logistic park will enable a clean environment and provide smart solutions to issues of goods handling and transport from and into the City.
A large section of slum dwellers can be rehabilitated in the residential zone of the logistic park and this can also be used as a mode of employment generation, president, Bhubaneswar Goods Transport Association (BGTA) Niranjan Praharaj said.
The small trucks, which can come into the city limits, can transport goods from Transport Nagar to market points for the convenience of transporters and general public.
Traffic and law and order situation of the City can be regulated if inter-State trucks are parked in the logistic park, a senior police official said.
“Transport Nagar would accommodate the offices and godowns of transporters, garages, spare parts shops, diesel pumps, weigh bridges, banks. This would streamline the business and make it more accessible,” Praharaj added.