Mihan’s ‘no’ to provide land for Naik auditorium: Officials

Nagpur: The amphitheater-cum-auditorium in the name of former chief minister Vasantrao Naik is all set to delay further after MADC officials refused to allocate land for it in Mihan.
The officials from the collectorate confirmed the development disclosing that when they approached the MADC after getting instructions from the State General Administration Department (GAD), the former informed that providing land for such projects was not in their rules. They also revealed that the mega project proposed to accommodate over 10,000 people was forced to find a new place after Nagpur University officials requested the government to shift it from it land behind the campus. Efforts to contact MADC chief engineer Subhash Chahande couldn’t materialized for his comments.
Earlier, NU had allotted the area adjacent to its new administrative block and even designs were finalized for building an amphitheater and below that an auditorium that can house 2,000 persons. It was also decided that auditorium would be used by NU for its regular functions like convocation and foundation day without any charges.
“We had demanded 23 acres, which is very difficult to get in the city. As per senior officials, we approached the MADC, but they cited rules to decline it. We even asked them on how AIIMS was provided land then, but they said, it was a special case.
Minister of state for public works Dattatraya Bharne on July 1, the birth anniversary of former CM in whose memory the project was announced by ex-CM Prithviraj Chavan in 2011, had directed the Nagpur Municipal Commissioner (NMC) Radhakrishnan B and former collector Ravindra Thakare to provide land for the project at the earliest.
When the project was initially announced by Chavan, it was an auditorium to be built in Naik’s memory in the city in 2011. Later, it was planned at Raj Bhavan, but locals moved the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court alleging loss of open space, after which it was dropped. The district administration then approached Dr Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth (PDKV) for land behind Mor Bhavan, but its executive council strongly opposed the proposal that further delayed the project.