Plan to make Admn people-friendly
By P.P.S. Gill
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Aug 14 — Restructuring of the Chandigarh Administration to make estate office and municipal corporation responsive, effective and people -friendly is on the anvil.

The plans drawn up at the initiative of the Administrator, Lt-Gen B.K.N. Chhibber (retd.), include a major revision of building bylaws, a soft-approach to the property transfer conversion charges, creation of enforcement wings in the agencies concerned with removal of encroachments and involving citizens in decision-making.

The Administrator, on the eve of Independence Day, in an exclusive interview, told TNS that besides19 important projects in hand there is proposal for some more projects which will enrich the union territory. These projects are in the form of a planetarium, a space odyssey laboratory, Bradlaugh India International Centre, an ethnic park, a 5,000-unit housing complex, a 120-mw captive power project (based on naphtha as feed-stock) and development of periphery in a planned manner.

Ensuring synchronised functioning within the administration and dealing with the two states, Punjab and Haryana, which share Chandigarh as a joint capital, make the Administrator’s task difficult.

Over a period of time, Chandigarh’s growth and development has not kept pace with the influx of people and vehicles. This makes it necessary to drastically revise the building bylaws which will facilitate a harmonious living in terms of a “healthy environment” which did not infringe on the basic character of the city and remained people-friendly.

At his Raj Bhavan office (Gen Punjab) Chhibber is also Governor of he has a blackboard facing him listing at least 19 important projects whose progress he monitors.

These projects range from the Beant Singh memorial and the Chandigarh Centre for Performing and Visual Arts to sales tax arrears, disposal of commercial sites and dealing with encroachments as also planning new housing colonies and constructing houses for the low and middle income group, mass rapid transit system, road improvement, new inter-state bus terminus, new grain market, exhibition centre, project of Kalagram, sanitation and disposal of garbage and “malba” to name some of them.

Talking of new projects and proposals, Gen Chhibber said for the planetarium Rs 50 lakh are available and also 2 crore land earmarked in a southern sector. Though conceived in late 70s, the project lay burried in files. Agencies to implement the project have been identified.

On the pattern of the space centre in the science city in Calcutta, the Chandigarh Administration proposes to set up a unit of “space odyssey” which will be part entertainment and part education. A team of officers is slated to visit Calcutta for a detailed study.

The famous India International Centre in New Delhi had now a branch in Goa. Taking a hint from that it has been decided to have a similar centre in Chandigarh as well. The centre is to be named after Bradlaugh, a 3 time British MP, who has been friendly to India over decades. For this centre, drawings are ready and construction will begin any day on a 1.96-acre plot adjacent to the Punjab Congress Bhavan on Madhya Marg. A trust existed for this purpose. Now the Administration has got into the act which will provide intellectuals and professionals a place for brain-storming sessions and deliberation. To meet the hostel facilities, as available in the India International Centre in New Delhi, some rooms in the UT State Guest House will be made available for a limited period. The project report, complete with membership fee pattern etc, is ready to take off.

Another major project at an advanced stage pertains to 120 mw, Rs 370 crore, captive power project based on naphtha, which is to come up on 50 acres in the Kishangarh area, where 105 acres have been acquired for development. The proposal has been cleared by the national thermal power corporation. Several necessary linkages with other government departments, like railways, environment etc have been formalised. The Centre is expected to fund it.

The proposed ethnic park is a theme-based project which will mirror rural India and will be developed as a tourist attraction. It is an adjunct to the Kalagram project, in a totally different way.

Gen Chhibber said housing board has completed formalities with HUDCO and a 5000-unit housing complex is proposed in Sector 48 for which 50 acres is available. Though the Prime Minister was to lay its foundation stone in April, when he visited Anandpur Sahib on tercentenary celebrations occasion, now the work will start shortly without frills.

There is a lot to do and much to undo in Chandigarh Administration, but the given administrative system, political exigencies and “vested” interests often hamper the functioning of the Administration. A major concern besides much else is “upkeep” of the city in terms of sanitation, hassle-free traffic and parking, removing encroachments and improving the delivery system of services people avail of from the estate office and the municipal corporation.

Gen Chhibber, who assumed office on September 18, 1994, is keen that grain market project should come up fast. More and better linkage of Chandigarh with Panchkula and railway station be set up and sanitation of the city improved. The people too are expected to cooperate in implementing the laid-down laws.