Haryana plans high-tech cities around NCR

New Delhi: To enable economic development of the central NCR towns on par with Delhi, Haryana has planned to develop Gurgaon, Faridabad, Bahadurgarh and Sonipat and the government has agreed to the most of the recommendations of the National Development Council (NDC) sub-committee on urbanization.

This was stated by Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda at the second meeting of the sub-committee of National Development Council (NDC) on urbanisation at Vigyan Bhawan, here on Monday.

Bhupinder Singh Hooda

Hooda said the draft report proposes strategies for balanced development of the NCR so as to enable economic development of the central NCR towns on par with Delhi. “Haryana Government accords high priority to urban development and as such the budget provision for Urban Sector has been increased from Rs 4,434 crore in 2010-11 to Rs 6,917 crore in 2011-12,” Hooda said.

He also said that Haryana government agrees with most of the recommendations of the NDC Sub-Committee on Urbanisation, according to a Zee News report..
However, in the formulation of Model Municipal Law, devolution of powers, responsibilities and functions to the local governments and communities should be left to state governments, as the local issues of every state and urban local bodies are different.
Haryana, he said, has already prepared City Development Plans (CDP) for 74 towns of Haryana but sought Centre’s help to cover the needs of infrastructure, including roads, drains, water supply, sewerage etc., which required a huge investment of Rs 12,346 crore
Hooda said that Haryana Government has already notified Policy on Public Private Partnership (PPP).

One of the key features of this policy is to establish “Haryana Infrastructure Fund” for building the required infrastructure, he said, adding that the Centre may make adequate provisions in the 12th Five Year Plan for providing Viability Gap Funding (VGF) for PPP projects. He also sought enhancement in the VGF ceiling of 20 per cent.
Hooda stressed on the need to constitute an Urban Management Transport Authority for NCR so as to ensure an integrated transport planning. Haryana, he said, is the first state in the country to implement a metro project in Gurgaon through private investment.

He said for faster and modern urban transport facilities, including metros and Regional Rapid Transit Systems (RRTS) in the NCR cities are being actively considered and two priority corridors of RRTS – Delhi-Sonipat-Panipat and Delhi-Gurgaon-Alwar are highly capital intensive and asked Urban Development ministry to fund the same as the state was unable to do so.

Regarding provision of Metro services in the NCR area of Haryana Sub-Region, Hooda said that the work for extending Metro from Badarpur to YMCA chowk Faridabad will commence soon.

For extending Delhi Metro from Mundka (Delhi) to Bahadurgarh in Haryana, he said, it has already been decided that the Delhi portion of this project would be taken up in the supplementary part of Metro Phase-III, which needs to be expedited. For connecting IGI Airport New Delhi to IFFCO Chowk, Gurgaon via Dwarka, a scheme of high speed Metro Rail connectivity has been prepared with the help of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation.