Bhopal to be India's most environment friendly city: CM

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has said his government is working on developing Bhopal so that it emerges as the country's most environment friendly city, instead of being known for the Gas Tragedy.

"We want to develop the state capital (Bhopal) as the best environment-friendly city of the country and we are working on it.

"We don't want people to know the state capital because of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy (the industrial disaster caused by the toxic leak from now defunct Union Carbide Factory in December 1984)," Chouhan said.

Speaking at the 'MP Real Estate Conclave 2012' here last night, he said there is a need to improve infrastructure in the cities as 30 per cent of the state's population lives in urban areas.

Chouhan said the government is going to organise a real estate summit early next year to give a fillip to the urban infrastructure. "The state (MP) is going to organise a real estate summit in the state in three months."

On his vision for urbanisation of Madhya Pradesh, he said the state government wants that the poor as well as common people should all live in places that have good infrastructure facilities.

He said the state was humming with development activities, adding that the growth rate of the state was 11.98 per cent.

MP Industries and Commerce Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya said people's purchasing power has gone up drastically following development in the state, prompting people to buy houses.

"Around 80,000 km road has been constructed in Madhya Pradesh – the most important infrastructure – for development," Vijayvargiya said.

The state's Urban Development Minister Babulal Gaur said beautification of Bhopal was on the fast-track which was attracting real estate business.

He claimed that Bhopal has Asia's biggest man-made clean lake.