Capital Venture

BUT once upon a time the state had been enthusiastic over the idea. On March 2003, then Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi had invited Congress president Sonia Gandhi to lay the foundation stone for the new capital. Sonia was reluctant to accept the invitation. Her biggest fear was that if the Congress didn8217;t return to power after the December 2003 assembly polls, the project would never materialise. Her fears were proved right.

Barely 22 km from Raipur, a heavy granite stone at village Paota is the only concrete sign of a capital project. The chief minister calls Jogi8217;s concept of new capital absurd, a criminal waste of money and impractical. Yet, he has not scrapped it. A ministerial committee under the chairmanship of forest and environment minister Ginesh Ram Bhagat formed to study the conceptual plan has not made any recommendation to the government and has left it to the chief minister to decide.

Singh8217;s views on it are a bit confusing. 8216;8216;The new capital is everyone8217;s dream yet it8217;s not on my priority list. But that doesn8217;t mean that we don8217;t require a separate capital township to take over Raipur8217;s load of crumbling civic amenities and traffic snarls,8217;8217; says Singh.

To be built by the Consulting Engineer Company CEC, a consortium of a Singapore-based company with an Indian partner, the new capital project was estimated to cost Rs 4,500 crore. Located near the Raipur airport and spread over 7,424 hectare and 26 villages, it was supposed to be a model city. The capital may not be anywhere in sight but the ban on land sale and new constructions is still on in the 26 villages.

THERE is another theory doing the rounds. Apparently a powerful builders lobby is pressuring the government to accept an alternative site. One of these sites8212;Kapa, a 600-acre patch of the Railway Ministry8217;s land on the Vidhan Sabha road is close to an upcoming residential township being developed by leading Raipur builder Rajiv Aggarwal. He is also president of the Chhattisgarh Builders8217; Association and is considered close to the chief minister. Aggarwal, however, says he never made any suggestions to the chief minister. But, he says, the government should take a final decision soon.

Raman Singh, meanwhile, last week wrote to Union Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav asking him to transfer the 600-acre land for construction of the state secretariat and mantralaya.

Singh8217;s suggestion has angered Jogi. He has asked Sonia Gandhi to stop Laloo from transferring land to the state government. 8216;8216;Raman wants to scuttle the project by changing the site from Paota to Kapa,8217;8217; he says.

As the war of words goes on if there is anyone that8217;s losing out, it is the residents of chaotic Raipur. The town that had capitaldom thrust on it, has been weighed down by its elevated status. And there8217;s no solution in sight.

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