Revamped Bhopal will cost Rs 18,000 crore

Bhopal: “Bhopal city is being revamped at a cost of Rs 18,000 crore,” said chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan while addressing a public meeting in T T Nagar on Thursday.

The chief minister performed bhumi pujan of upcoming projects of Bhopal Smart City Development Corporation Limited (BSCDCL). Besides chief minister, ministers Gopal Bhargav, Vishwas Sarang, Umashankar Gupta, mayor Alok Sharma, district collector Sudam Khade and municipal commissioner Priyanka Das were present on the occasion.

In his address, chief minister appealed to residents to maintain cleanliness in the city so that Bhopal becomes India’s cleanest city in the upcoming survey. In the first phase, the government employees working in city will have houses built at the proposed site, which will cost Rs 200 crore. In all, 688 flats will be constructed under the scheme for the employees, which will be 20 percent larger than its original size.

The houses will have all the modern amenities and will be built by BSCDCL. The other projects to be developed include Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) at the cost of Rs 300 crore, incubation centre and solar plant at cost of Rs 10 crore and integrated traffic management system at the cost of Rs 17 crore.

ICCC is the integrated command centre for all the smart cities in the state while integrated traffic management system will have cameras to detect commuters who violate traffic norms for which the digital challan will be sent on the address of vehicle owner. This will reduce the burden of traffic policemen.

Speaking on the occasion, mayor Alok Sharma said that the work of proposed smart road, which connects Polytechnique square to Bharat Mata square will be completed by March 31. He also said that there will be a separate strategy for haat markets in T T Nagar area, which will be a part of the area based development programme of BSCDCL.