NMC to redevelop Yeshwant stadium and Chitnis Park

Nagpur: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) is planning to redevelop Yeshwant stadium and Chitnis Park on the lines of Ahmedabad’s multi-sport ‘TransStadia’. Municipal commissioner and administrator Radhakrishnan B on Tuesday gave the nod for a consultant to prepare the technical design and business plan of both the stadiums.
“The consultant will do a feasibility study and prepare business models to replace the existing stadiums. Then NMC will take a call on whether to go for PPP (public, private partnership) or EPC (Engineering, Procurement of goods, Construction) models,” he told TOI.
Along with indoor sports activities, the project will also stress on sound business models to ensure that the NMC faces no financial crunch to maintain them, he said.
In Ahmedabad, TransStadia devised a viable infrastructure development programme that played an integral part in making sports an industry.
A senior official from NMC’s projects department clarified that TransStadia has partnered with leading experts in the sports business to deliver associated functionality of a multi-purpose stadium with integrated training and convertible sports infrastructure.
The Gujarat government invested around ₹530 crore to create the urban sports infrastructure which incorporates globally patented technology for flexibility in space utilization and to optimize the usage of non-sporting areas for cultural and social activities, he further explained.
The seating capacity of Yeshwant stadium is around 30,000, while the figure is 7,000 at Chitnis Park. Due to outdated infrastructure and lack of other basic amenities like facilities for sportspersons, parking space etc, both the playfields remain underutilized almost round the year.
About Yeshwant stadium, officials said that on April 6, 1962, NMC got 13.56 acres of land from the state government on lease for construction of a stadium. The civic body constructed Yeshwant stadium on 3.6 acres between 1970 and 1974. It’s around 53 years old.
As it is situated in the heart of the city and is an old structure, the NMC has decided to undertake its redevelopment. In the past too, a redevelopment plan was made with reconstruction of the multistorey stadium with world class standards. The project then included modernization of the existing play field, an administrative block, separate dormitories for sportspersons, shops, a shopping complex facing the main road at a cost of ₹89.01 crore.