Want to stop road through Bharat Van? Your corporators can do it

Nagpur: Even as the Nagpur Municipal Corporation is all set to construct a 500-metre new road cutting through lush green PDKV land, the only hope Bharat Nagar residents have to save ‘Bharat Van’ is to mount pressure on the corporators of the area. The city fathers can get the planned road deleted from the development plan (DP) by bringing it up in the general body meeting of the civic body.
The road is proposed to come up between Bharat Nagar Square on Amravati Road and Maharashtra Jeevan Pradhikaran (MJP) office on Telangkhedi Hanuman Mandir Road. Three of the four corporators — Pragati Patil and Shilpa Dhote of the BJP, and Kamlesh Chowdhary of the Congress had joined the residents’ protest on March 10 and shown solidarity. Only Pramod Karauti of the BJP was not present.

A corporator has the option of serving a notice under section 37 of the Maharashtra Regional Town Planning Act to the NMC and demand deletion of the DP road in the face of protests by citizens, experts told TOI.

The other way the deletion of the road from the DP plan can happen is if the land owner issues a purchase notice under section 127 of MRTP Act. But, PDKV, which is the land owner, has failed to issue a purchase notice to the authority.

“Had the PDKV done that and if no acquisition could have been initiated on the land within ten years from the date on which the final development plan came into force, the reservation could be deleted,” said city planner Rajesh Jaiswal.

The development plan of the road was prepared by Nagpur Improvement Trust in 1971. Until recently there was no talk about the construction of the road.

Jaiswal pointed out the last DP was published in 2000 and even after 18 years the road was not constructed. “So there was no need of this DP road. If the civic authority thinks that in future traffic will increase, it can widen the existing Futala road instead of creating a new road,” he said.

Another city planner Virendra Khare said that if the road has to be built no other construction should be allowed on both sides. “There have been instances in the past when reservation of open spaces have been deleted so it can be done in this case too,” he said.

Senior Congress corporator Praful Gudadhe said a corporator can raise the issue in the NMC’s general body meeting by bringing a notice. “Any corporator can demand deletion and it’s up to the civic administration to bring a proposal under section 37 of MRTP Act for minor modification of the DP plan,” he explained.

In the past, discussions on many such notices were held in the general body meeting and deletion of development plan reservation too were taken place by passing resolutions.

POINTS TO PONDER

* Corporators can help save ‘Bharat Van’ by raising the issue in the general body meeting

* General body can accept a resolution under section 37 of the MRTP Act to delete the reservation

* PDKV could have raised objection had it served purchase notice to NMC

* PDKV has already issued no-objection certificate giving go ahead to NMC