Public hearing for Samruddhi Corridor held at Nagpur

Nagpur, March 1, 2017: In an effort to expedite the Maharashtra Samruddhi Corridor (MSC) project, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) conducted the first public hearing on environment here yesterday.

The public hearing was held at a farm in Wadgaon Gujar village in Hingna taluka of Nagpur district for 89.355 km stretch between Nagpur and Wardha for the Corridor, also known as Nagpur Mumbai Super Communications Expressway (NMSCE). The public hearing was held as per the orders of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.

Speaking to the farmers, Mr, U J Dabe, Superintending Engineer, MSRDC explained, “Life of every human being is precious, so special care will be taken on the expressway so that in case of accident, response time should be the least. We have proposed nodes for planned development all along the Expressway especially at the important interchanges of the city. These nodes are in Selu, Ganeshpur and Dihol.”

Starting from Shivmadga the highway goes through Hingna Taluka of Nagpur and three other talukas of Wardha. A total of 1520.04 hectares of land from 21 villages in Nagpur district and 34 villages in Wardha district would be required of which 49.22 hectares is forest land, Mr. Dabe informed.

“Connector and interchange pattern would be considered for the land and there are no ecologically sensitive areas in 15 km of project land. Efforts will be taken to see to it that environment is not affected while constructing the road,” Mr. Dabe said and added, “The details regarding environmental impact report and others have been put up on MSRDC’s website. MSRDC will also ensure that tenders are floated to maintain the environmental maintenance work and the same gets completed in a set time format.”

The farmers present at the hearing raised some concerns regarding the mega project. In reply to the farmers’ grievances, Mr. K N K Rao, Additional Collector, said, “All gram panchayats have been provided with the required information. If anyone needs individual information, it could be collected from the office of the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) situated at Udyog Bhavan, Nagpur. “The state government has assured that the issues regarding land acquisition through land pooling etc, industrial concerns and agricultural and environmental concerns will be addressed,” Mr. Rao added.

The expressway is an ambitious project of the state government which will catapult the State’s growth by 20 years through a holistic process that integrates road connectivity with sustainable rural development through agribusiness ecosystems and multidimensional economic activities. The Corridor is a 702-km superfast communication expressway between Nagpur and Mumbai, connecting 10 districts, 24 talukas and 385 villages of Maharashtra that will reduce the travel time between the two cities from 16 hours to 8 hours flat.

This process in turn will generate employment, fuel growth in agriculture and related activities and lay the foundations of a robust infrastructure and eventually contain rural migration. Nagpur-Mumbai Super Communication Expressway would be the fastest in Asia.