Hi,
The city of Mumbai had influx of people from all over the country and thus population was growing more than 40% each decade starting from the year 1950. To address this problem of growing population in Mumbai, the Government appointed a study group under the chairmanship of SC Bharve in February 1959. The recommendation of this study group was to develop a city across the Thane creek to connect peninsular Mumbai to Mainland Mumbai.
City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) was founded in 1970 by the Maharashtra State Government for the express purpose of planning and implementing the New Bombay project (now Navi Mumbai). It is wholly owned by the state government.
Originally a subsidiary of the state-owned State Industrial Investment Corporation of Maharashtra Limited (SICOM), it was later made independent and given administrative powers over the New Bombay region. Since its work has to be coordinated with the independent BMC, a regulatory body, the MMRDA was set up as an apex body.
CIDCO has done a splendid work to develop the parallel city of Navi Mumbai. CIDCO claims to be the city of the 21st century, and why not?? The parallel city of Navi Mumbai was developed to decongest Mumbai and cater to the business and residential needs of the ever increasing population of Navi Mumbai. CIDCO then acquired private owned land comprising of 95 villages within the limits of Navi Mumbai for development. Unlike rest of the Government/ quasi Government agencies, there is great accountability like audit reports, financial being printed and made public, since this is incorporated under the Indian Companies Act, 1956.
CIDCO carved out 14 nodes - small townships - of the land with a view to facilitate comprehensive development and to give it an identity of new city. These nodes are named Airoli, Ghansoli, Kopar Khairane, Vashi, Sanpada, Nerul, CBD Belapur, Kharghar, Kalamboli, Jui Kamothe, New Panvel, Ulwe, Pushpak and Dronagiri. CIDCO built infrastructure which is out of this world, some of the infrastructure initiatives by CIDCO are:
Housing
Roads: Road Network of 650 kms, 5 bridges, 8 flyovers, 15 roadover bridges, 2 foot over bridges. Each part of Navi Mumbai is connected by road. The Palm Beach Road built along the coast connecting the major nodes in Navi Mumbai is mind boggling with residential plots coming up.
Railways: The railway transport, also known as mass rapid transport, covering a length of 157 kms. and occupying 900 ha. area is planned with seven separate corridors and 26 stations. The first corridor of 29 kms. length, called Mankhurd-Belapur Panvel is commissioned. It connects CST to CBD-Belapur.
Water Transport: CIDCO has taken initiative in promoting the water transport service between Mumbai & Navi Mumbai by providing infrastructure facilities required for the operation of high-speed hovercraft. However this has ran into problems because of the costs needed to be paid by the passengers.
Telecommunication: Navi Mumbai is covered under MTNL, Mumbai and has all the telecom facilities at par with Mumbai. MTNL network in Navi Mumbai has a total equipped capacity of more than 1, 40, 000 lines and 15 Telephone Exchanges covering entire Navi Mumbai. The transmission links between Navi Mumbai and Mumbai are through Optic Fibre Cables and hence most reliable.
The telecom/telephone services from private sector companies are also available in Navi Mumbai. M/s.Hughes Telecom India Ltd.(HTIL) is a basic telephone service provider in private sector. M/s. Reliance Infocom is develpoing OFC backbone to provide basic and other value added telecom services. MTNL has 11 telephone exchanges in Navi Mumbai. They are at Vashi, Kopar Khairane, Nerul, Turbhe, Rabale, Belapur, Taloja, Kalamboli, Panvel, Uran and Nhava Sheva. Practically all the mobile operators operating in Mumbai are operating in Navi Mumbai.
- IT Infrastructure: The International Infotech Park at Vashi is at the most ideal locations. More than 6 lacs sq. ft. built-up premises in the commercial complex of Vashi Railway Station have been earmarked for information technology park. The companies, VSNL, Huge Ispat, STPI, National Stock Exchange Inter-connect etc. have already started functioning. The Infotech Park will have tremendous employment and income generation potential. There is also a International Technology centre at CBD Belapur. The state-of-the-art technological surroundings with 10, 00, 000 sq.ft. of built area in a beutifully designed building offers adequate uninterrupted, stable power supply, residential facilities in close proximity, health club, well-designed conference facilities, parks and gardens with plenty of parking space. It is ideal for companies/firms offering IT enabled services. WIPRO, a heavy weight in IT sector has already put its footmark here by acquiring almost 16% (1, 56, 000 sq.ft.) of the available space.
Things to come:
Airport: CIDCO is now developing the Navi Mumbai International Airport by 2007. The site of airport is located in an ara of 950 hectares accommodating two parallel runways for simultaneous and segregated parallel operation with provision of full length taxi ways on either side of the runways.
Golf Course: Golf course of 18 and 27 holes planned in Nerul and Kharghar.
Amusement Park
City Convention Centre
International Sports Complex.
Navi Mumbai is known for its best educational institutes like the DAV Public school, Delhi Public School, Father Agnels, Ryan International to name a few.
I think I stop here and let me have your comments.
Regards,
Vijay