The contrast cannot get starker than this. Maharashtra’s winter capital city is also the capital city of the state’s suicide zone, Vidarbha. It’s a lively city, and has abundant green pastures, literally as well as figuratively. The sleepy, almost static city is at the cusp of a transition. The famed economic boom finally seems to have finally descended on the zero mile city.
Defining Nagpur takes much more than clichés could tell. It’s the same city where Dalit messiah Dr BR Ambedkar embraced Buddhism. It’s the same city where India’s ideological Right, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has its headquarters. And, of course, it is still India’s geographical centre.
But the Multimodal International Hub Airport at Nagpur (MIHAN), said to be the country’s first, could catapult it at the centre of a great economic activity. And, to use the mother of all clichés, it is India’s orange city. Time is just ripe for Nagpur’s oranges to go places.
The 24-lakh-plus city is no more condescendingly considered a big village. Its transition phase has already morphed Nagpur into arguably the most happening Tier-II city in Maharashtra. A poll to elect its 136-member civic body could not have come at a better time.
For the state BJP president Nitin Gadkari, this is a big match as Nagpur is his home ground. Mr Gadkari has to win this one for his party, and for himself. In this RSS bastion, the BJP has only once won the Lok Sabha election. And only once it has ruled Nagpur Municipal Corporation, between 1996 and 2001. So, it’s a prestige battle for BJP though Mr Gadkari would like to keep it low-key. “It’s like any other election for me and I am fighting it as an ordinary BJP karyakarta,” maintained the BJP heavyweight.
BJP legislator from West Nagpur Devendra Fadnavis, who was mayor when the BJP ruled, is clear that Nagpur has reached a take-off stage as a result of the foresight shown by his party. “In 1996, we planned for ten years and achieved half of it by the time we left office. But the Congress has not been able to carry forward that legacy. Nagpur’s profile has changed but the civic rule has not caught up with the rising aspirations,” Mr Fadnavis maintained.
Giving the BJP a tough time are two Congress satraps — Nagpur MP Vilas Muttemwar, who is also union minister of state (independent charge) for non-conventional energy, and Maharashtra minister for textiles Satish Chaturvedi. Mr Muttemwar claims MIHAN has always been his brainchild and it’s happening now because of the Congress rule in Nagpur, state, and at the Centre. Here the Congress has not formed a pre-poll alliance with the NCP.
Apart from the Rs 7,000-crore MIHAN, an SEZ that is being developed as part of MIHAN has already bagged investment commitments from IT majors such as Satyam Computer, L&T Infocity, and real estate major Shapoorji Pallonji. US aircraft manufacturer Boeing has announced an investment of $185 million in setting up a maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) facility and an aeronautical training institute in Nagpur. Clearly, a modest civic budget of Rs 500 crore does not represent Nagpur’s potential.
Nagpur’s success story has spawned an unprecedented real estate boom, says prominent developer Vishwas Sahasrabhojanee. “The feel-good factor is definitely working in Nagpur. It used to be called orange city in the distant past. Then, its rich green cover earned it the honour of the second greenest city. Swanky roads added another feather of getting famous as a clean city. Now, it’s being regarded as the cream city where all this has created a good investment climate and a realty boom,” Mr Sahasrabhojanee says.
Vidarbha Industries Association president Mohan Agarwal could not agree more. “Nagpur’s moment of glory seems to have finally arrived. It’s time the municipal authorities and city fathers seized the moment and planned for the future. Planning henceforth must factor in 25%-30% rise in population in next 10 years and the economic growth,” Mr Agarwal recommends.
That’s what Nagpur expects from the 2007 civic poll — a holistic plan for the future. Just as the city celebrates the end of a virtual economic drought, it wants its civic rulers to remember what happened to Pune when it started rocking. “What we can learn from Pune is plan well in advance so that economic activity does not take the better of civic infrastructure,” Mr Fadnavis prescribes.
-a report by Abhiram Ghadyalpatil
