HIDCO to address grievances of house owners

In a bid to build up confidence among the future house owners in New Town, the Housing and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) will sit in a meeting with them.

Debashis Sen, chairman of HIDCO said house owners will be invited for a meeting and they will be informed about the infrastructure in the area. Many people have complained of poor infrastructure in the area like roads, water and electricity. But, now, New Town is getting piped water from Hooghly river.

Unfiltered water from Debendrabala Ghat is taken to New Town where it is filtered and then supplied to the households.

Road connectivity has improved in the area along with the transport system.“We will talk to the owners of these properties and will try to listen to their views and will encourage them to take possession of their houses and flats,” Sen said.

HIDCO is planning to introduce motor cycle taxi in New Town to give better facility to single travellers. Motor cycles will be booked through app like new age taxis. Sen had met with the Principal Secretary (transport), Alapan Bandopadhyay who had agreed to the proposal. It may be mentioned that in Gurgaon and Bangalore this system has been introduced and commuters have been benefited from it. HIDCO authorities are also planning to introduce a project where cyclists can put their cycles in front of the bus stand. The experts from IIT are preparing the public cycle scheme for the area. The HIDCO authorities might include this in the proposed plan for the smart city which would be submitted to the Centre on April 15.

With a view to set up New Town as a smart city, HIDCO officials will meet professors of IIT from department of planning and architecture and IT on February 25. A two day meeting on March 2 and 3 was held with the members of C-40 City Alliance. As the new cities have problems which are unique to them, HIDCO officials will meet their counterparts in Amaravati. “Such interactions are very important, new cities have problems of their own which are different from the old cities. To iron out the problems such interactions are important,” Sen said. It may be recalled that Union Urban Development minister Venkaiah Naidu has said that New Town would be declared as a smart city in the second phase. A smart city will get Rs 100 crore from the Centre for five years and the respective state government will dish out another Rs 100 crore for the same period.