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Sunday, July 29, 2007

"THE CITY" OF THE FUTURE

A couple of years back I was in Shanghai. The towers and buildings and flyovers of Shanghai looked great…even more glamorous than those of many other top cities of the world. An as if it was not enough, there were construction sites all over the place. New towers in half constructed stages, new flyovers over the existing ones…..the whole city was the symbol of construction activities. I kept on wondering how Shanghai would be like five years down the line. Will it be able to beat NewYork???

Now in Mumbai…I feel something of that sort happening, though at a much smaller level…especially Navi Mumbai ( the satellite city planned originally to relieve Mumbai of its stress) seems to be abounding with multi billion dollar projects. Just to give an idea, I have collected some of the prestigious projects which will have adorned Navi Mumbai within the next 5-10 years.

Reliance SEZ
Second international airport
New World Trade Centre
Panvel-Karjat railway line
Dhapoli amusement park
Sewri-Nhava Seva sea link
Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust
Goa express highway (reducing the distance to Goa by 215 km).
Mumbai transharbour sea-link
Dozens of huge shopping complexes, malls, towering luxury apartments and seven star hotels
Central Park
Panvel Railway platform – around 20 platforms

And these are just a few of the mega-projects (each of them running into billions) lined up in Navi Mumbai….I keep on wondering how Navi Mumbai will be ten years down the line. Will Navi Mumbai turn out to be the 21st century megapolis of India…can this place look like Hongkong or Singapore or Shanghai ten years down the line….i don’t see any reason why it will not.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi,
Let me warn you that Mumbai is famous for "planning" these ambitious and big ticket construction and infrastructure projects. However, very few of these plans actually materialize.

Sabyasachi said...

Well....i think things do happen in Mumbai (or in that matter in India)....only thing is that they are slow....
what may take 5 years in China...normally takes 15 years in India...but then India is a free country....for every project to happen there will be 10 parties opposing...and from the viewpoint of those who are opposing..they are not doing anything wrong by opposing.

For instance the airport...the process started 15 years ago..but now things are in ready shape....

Anonymous said...

wrong english in yr comment..shud be "for that matter" and not "in that matter"


the selfish pedant

Sabyasachi said...

thanks for correcting me...
"selfish pedant"...why such a name???

Anonymous said...

i am selfish bcoz i have this bad habit of carping and caviling about any grammatical mistake anybody makes just so that it doesnt bug me(i know its weird) and pedant is just wat the dictionary meaning suggests.So kindly bear with me :)