Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Work on Panchapradip starts

Yesterday afternoon, we broke coconuts to mark the date of actual commencement of beautification works of sixth rotary or Akankhya More where the subways have already been commissioned. This is a major intersection and we will erect a sculpture that will welcome visitors to Kolkata and New Town. Renowned architect Prabir Mitra is designing the sculpture. A photo taken yesterday:
Ananda Ganguly, Prabir Mitra, me, Mrinal Mukherji:
22 July 2014, 6th Rotary


6 comments:

  1. This is an excellent initiative. Almost at 50 ft; this tower would definitely be a land mark of the future...
    Thanks for planning this! What would be the tentative date of completion for this?

    Regards,
    Sowmik

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sir, Please check this.
    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Tamil-Nadu-seeks-finance-hub-status-for-Chennai/articleshow/36326789.cms

    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Budget-2014-Chennai-focal-point-for-two-industrial-corridors/articleshow/38147868.cms

    This is alarming. If this is agreed upon then Kolkata will lose edge over Chennai. It has better connectivity to ASEAN Countries in air routes, is the focal point of two industrial corridors, has India's largest automobile hub and not to mention political amiability with the Center. It also has the South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4 Optical Fibre Station.
    I also request you to let us know the official status of the Financial hub at New Town in terms of recognition by the present govt.
    Additionally I request you to kindly look into the suggestion of industrial corridors that I had made in your previous post. (I shall repost it below for your convenience).
    These proposals if accepted can thwart Chennai grabbing the position from Kolkata.
    Also I request you the status of the BSNL owned Rs 1600-crore submarine cable-laying project between India and South-east Asia at Digha as taking this up will help to boost the Financial hubs position as a potential data mining center.
    I would like to throw light that both Chennai and Mumbai already have three each.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I completely agree with Aritra. Chennai and GIFT Ahmedabad can steal the thunder from us. No where I am hearing WB Govt and HIDCO harping on the fact around 12 financial institutions have already purchased land in New Town finance hub. I sincerely hope that road show in Singapore becomes a success as far as attraction of investments in financial sector is concerned. However I still think that we need to do another road show in Bombay and engage some management consultancy firms to attract middle office and back office jobs in much larger numbers in Kolkata.

      Cable landing station is very important to reduce internet bandwidth charges. There was some land related issues in Digha. Now with you at the helm of affairs in Gangasagar Development Authority , can we plan the cable landing station in GangaSagar in collaboration with BSNL?

      Delete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sir, below is my previous post that I referred in the above post. This was after your post regarding new city at Jaigaon as Smart City. However, I believe in the following lines you will find mention of the Industrial quadrilateral I suggested. Since, I didn't get any response to it I request you take time and give due attention to it.

    "Sir, this is indeed a great move. In line with this I request you to go through the GIFT City being developed in Gujarat where for smart city initiative, district cooling systems, suction based district waste collection system network are being built. Since these cities in proposals are on virgin lands prior planning can incorporate these techniques.
    Also, i request you to conduct a special regional study to help in creating a balanced urban- rural network in the region where cities such as Siliguri, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar are on one tier and these smart cities are another tier creating a homogeneous mix in the city thus mitigating migration and urban load on the former cities.
    I request a similar study be carried out in South Bengal as well. A Industrial quadrilateral can be proposed with Raniganj- Chittaranjan- Asansol- Burnpur- Durgapur- Andal- Dankuni as one side of the polygon, Asansol- Bishnupur- Raghunathpur as other, Raghunathpur- Kharagpur- Haldia- Sagar as another and Sagar- Kulpi- Uluberia- Dankuni as the fourth side.
    These can later with inter- state cooperation can extend it to Bhillai- Rourkela- Jharsuguda- Jamshedpur on Kharagpur line and another of Dhenkanal- Bhubaneshwar- Paradeep on Kharagpur line and Dhanbad- Bokaro on Asansol line. This way Dankuni's freight terminal for AKDIC gets ensured, need for Kulpi port and Sagar deep sea port get recognised and Kharagpur's large rail based loop systems can be utilised as another rail freight logistic hub on Hub - Spoke Model. Also, it can spurn growth if KOTRA is provided land in the lines of Neemrana model of Rajasthan for electronics manufacturing.

    Here is another reference link.

    http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/states/korean-trade-promotion-agency-to-visit-upcoming-hardware-cluster-at-naihati/article6245053.ece

    Based on this I can say it will help the states get the major share of manufacturing business of India back to Eastern India and helping the region uplift economically and politically.
    Even the proposed High- Speed Corridors which Eastern India did not get any in the initial proposals will be much more practical along these corridors.
    The Inter- State Industrial Corridor then can be linked to the larger National Corridors like AKDIC and Vishakhapatnam- Chennai Industrial Corridor.
    Adding to it Andal Airport's passenger catchment will be ensured and so will be the Center Govt.'s recognition of the National Waterways No. 1 be realised."

    All these if well integrated and planned can act as a booster for economy in the state.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Our basic problem seems to be implementation of plans. We believe in announcing grandiose plans. Then change/modify them arbitrarily (if in doubt, see the planned and actual locations of ,the convention centre). That creates doubts in mind of business houses, about what the final shape of things will be. So, we have quite a few who have taken plots in new town, but going slow on transferring them from paper to the ground. We, bengalis, are too bureaucratic to appreciate that processes/rules are a just means to achieve an end --- for us, the process is the end. So while Bangalore successfully processes new business-friendly rules to snatch Air Asia's maintenance hub from Chennai, we are have not even been able to ensure that Bandhan relocate it's headquarters from sector V to our financial hub. All India headquarters of a bank could just be the impetus that could kick start the other plot-holders into action. And, finally, we all know that God helps those who help themselves. We had budgetary allocations for metro, yet decided our to pamper our inherent penchant for petty obstructionist politics rather than see the project through. And, now that the government has stopped allocation funds, we are having a whale of a time playing our favourite game of complaining about victimization. As long as Bengal's society decides about what it wants, this state of affairs will remain --- plan to be the best and act to be the worst! Let us acknowledge that there is some reason as to why we have one tongue and two hands. Once we do that, we would have take our first steps to improving our lot.

    ReplyDelete