Sunday was a very special day for the state's second capital and hometown of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union minister Nitin Gadkari – Nagpur – when decks were cleared for a bunch of projects in a single day.
From land allotment to fund allocation, all deadlocks related to construction of campuses of premier institutions such as AIIMS, IIIT, IIM and National Law University were cleared after a marathon meeting, in which all officials concerned were asked to be present. Fadnavis and Gadkari were also present in the meet. The fast-track decisions will set the ball rolling for these projects that were announced in a span of few months of the BJP-Sena government coming to power. The CM put out all decisions through a series on tweets.
Land for IIIT and National Law university was allotted on Sunday, along with the approval of the initial grants of Rs 1.4 crore and Rs 4 crore respectively. IIIT and NLU both had been given temporary campuses to admit students from the current academic year.
A decision was also taken to appoint premier National Institute of Technology, Nagpur, as the mentor for the new government engineering college, which is set to have a digital campus and high-tech classrooms. VNIT would also be setting up an electronic testing lab in their premises. Progress of construction of AIIMS was also reviewed in the meeting. All these educational projects are worth over Rs 3,000 crore of investment.
Both leaders directed to set up an artificial limb centre, while reviewing setting up of a Composite Regional Centre for the disabled. The Centre would provide Rs 50 crore for the project. "The Nagpur collector will act as the coordinator between Central and state officials for clearing up the hurdles," said the CM. He also directed the officials to create an Iconic Structure at Zero Mile in Nagpur. Officials were asked to complete the process of handing over of land for affordable housing under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna in three weeks, and submit a time-bound plan.
The meeting's agenda also included development of Kasturchand Park, Chitnis Park, Vidhan Bhavan, MLA rest house and Vasantrao Desphande Hall. Gadkari also reviewed the Metro region plan and forest-related issues of Seminary Hills, Gorewada and Ambazari.
