Navi Mumbai: The 80-day period, including an extension of 20 days for submitting objections and suggestions for the Draft Development Plan (2018-38) of the city, concluded on October 31, and the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) received more than 15000 objections and suggestions from citizens. Now, the civic body will conduct a hearing and send the final draft to the state government for final approval.
The last week saw a massive number of citizens submitting their suggestions, especially for reservations of plots for different purposes. The civic body will summarise and categorise all the objections and suggestions before holding the hearing.
“We have received a large number of suggestions in the last three days and the work on summarising them is underway,” said a senior official from NMMC. He added that the number of suggestions is greater than the number of objections.
For the first time, NMMC published its draft Development Plan (DP) for the city’s development for the period of 2018-38 in August 2022.
The draft DP projects the population of the city to be around 28 lakhs by 2038, and there is a need to upgrade the infrastructure and other amenities to meet the demand. As per the 2011 census, the population of the city was 11.2 lakh and by 2018, it reached 15 lakhs, with an increase of around 50,000 every year.
Since Navi Mumbai is a planned city, there is very little scope for further development and even in DP, the civic body admitted that the city is developed upto 95%, with only 5% vacant land available for future development.
Now, the draft DP for the City’s needs up to 2038 has been put up for suggestions and objections. The first DP was prepared by CIDCO and sanctioned by the government in 1979.
Even after its formation, NMMC has been following the development control regulations (DCR) formed by CIDCO and there has been a demand for fresh DP to look into micro issues. CISCO’s 1979 DP was a structural development plan.
While most of political parties and social activists alleged that the civic body did not carry out adequate awareness regarding the development plan of the city for the next 20 years, and conducted their own campaign, green groups from the city alleged that draft DP ignored environmental issues and the imminent infrastructure crisis arising out of the massive redevelopment projects underway, citizen groups said.
On the last day, they also submitted their suggestions on creating urban forests, similar to ones created at Kopar Khairane and Nerul.
