The Times of India 06.09.2012
Consultant's lax approach flayed in Ranchi master plan meeting
RANCHI: Consultancy company Feedback has come in for criticism from town planning experts, infrastructure development companies and government officials for its half-hearted approach on preparing the master plan for the state capital.A meeting was called by the state urban development department and the Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) which was attended by director census operations Sunil Kumar Barnwal, deputy commissioner of Ranchi Vinay Choubey, deputy mayor Ajay Nath Shahdeo and other senior officers.
Almost everyone present in the first interactive meeting criticized the consultants for not doing a detailed study of the town.While an officer from the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (Hudco) pointed out the fault in drainage system, deputy chief executive officer of the RMC Gopalji Tiwary challenged the number of slums pointed out in the master plan.
"Your team has not done the basic survey before making the draft master plan. You have just picked up the number from the official document of the Union urban development department which is not correct," said Tiwary.The consultant admitted that they had not done the survey. "This is just a draft report and we will make necessary inclusions to address the concerns raised by the participants during the discussion," said an official of the consultancy firm.Town planning experts further pointed out that the plan of constructing an inner ring road in a densely populated city like Ranchi was not viable. "The city is already congested and the roads are very narrow.
If we think of making an inner ring road, the dream of a planned city will never become a reality. Instead of trying to make changes within the city, the concentration should be on developing colonies along the under construction ring road," said a town planner.The deputy mayor suggested to the consultant to include details on water supply system for the city so that the proposed master plan which aims to cover basic need till 2037 do not fall flat. "We have very poor experience of the past and our last master plan of 1983 failed miserably because of basic loopholes. My request is that all those mistakes should be rectified," said the deputy mayor adding that the consultant should also include New Ranchi area in the master plan.
