Chandigarh
As the city prepares to ring in the New Year, there is a lot residents look — or should look — forward to in 2020.
Here’s a peep into what is — or could be — in store for them in the days to come.
Good roads
In July 2019, the condition of city roads went from bad to worse. A potholed road near Hallomajra claimed one life. The UT Administrator then gave Rs 50-crore fund to the cash-starved corporation to get the roads recarpeted. But due to winter season which is considered an off-season for the road repair, the work was held back. The road recarpeting work will begin in March this year. Tenders have been allotted. Rs 32.20 crore will be spent on recarpeting of 271.08 kilometres of stretch and Rs 31.56 crore will be spent on 221 kilometres of stretch in the next phase beginning March 15.
New waste collection system
From April 1, residents will see new waste collection system in place. There will be 300 CNG-based twin bin vehicles worth Rs 18 crore purchased by the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation which will do waste collection from door to door. Residents will also pay new user charges as decided by the corporation. Under the new system, existing garbage collectors who work independently as of now will work either as drivers, helpers or discharge any duty assigned by the corporation in sanitation work on an outsourced basis.
A woman mayor this time
The city will get new mayor on January 10. The seat this time is reserved for a woman candidate. As the BJP has a majority in the General House with 20 of its councillors, it is certain it will be a BJP mayor. Among the BJP front-runners are councillor Raj Bala Malik, councillor Heera Negi and councillor Sunita Dhawan. The mayor in Chandigarh has a one-year term.
All services in one app
All 14 services of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation will be available online in one mobile application. This will begin from October 2020. Services like water connection, sewerage connection, fire no objection certificate, property tax all will be available in the application. Also, the online building permission will begin from April 1 after a trial run in March. This will be done by the Chandigarh Smart City Limited. This will facilitate people to avail the services with the click of a button.
Public bike-sharing
The pending project of public bike-sharing will begin within six months now. The Chandigarh Smart City Limited had invited bids for it. Initially, there were no bidders. But now two bidders have come forward and from June onwards, the Smart City Limited will begin the public bike sharing project. With this, residents can pick bikes from any station and drop it at the other one with a nominal charge. There will be 617 points across busy places from where the bikes can be taken. This is being done to encourage non-motorised transport in the city.
Integrated command control centre
The integrated command control centre through which surveillance of city’s traffic will be done will see its first phase completing by June 2020. As many as 40 rotaries will have red light violation detectors, automatic number plate readers that will track the traffic violators and challans will be sent through post. The number plate readers will help in reading the number plate of the violators and challan will be sent to registered address mentioned in the registration certificate. Apart from tracking entry and exit of every vehicle in Chandigarh, the centre will also be notified about non-functioning street lights through sensors installed in these lights. In the first phase, streetlights of sectors 17, 22, 35 and 43 will be made sensor-based. There are a total of 3,770 streetlights in these areas. The centre will help the police track accused in crime cases based on gross violation of traffic rules.
High-end flats in IT Park for officers
Towers of high-end flats for officers of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh will be built in IT Park by the Chandigarh Housing Board. The construction will begin this year. One tower of flats will cost Rs 66 crore each to the Punjab, Chandigarh and Haryana governments. There will be 28 such flats in one tower. This way, all the three governments will have to shell out almost Rs 198 crore to the CHB that will be constructing the flats. A competition is being conducted among architects to finalise the best design. The design competition is being conducted to hire a private consultant who will then give the drawings. According to the board, the construction will begin next year.
40 mini-electric buses
Residents will get 40 mini-electric buses. Tenders for the same are being floated again. It was in August 2017 that the trial of electric buses for 15 days was held in Chandigarh. The trial was jointly carried out by the Chandigarh Transport Undertaking (CTU) and the State Transport Department. In 2016, the project of having electric buses was introduced in Chandigarh. Earlier, UT had planned to buy 20 big electric buses at a cost of Rs 32 crore. One bus was costing around Rs 1.25 crore to Rs 1.40 crore. Later, help from the Centre was sought but the funds were denied. It was then that the UT decided to get buses from its own budget. A trial was held for 15 days. The electric buses are likely to arrive in the second half of this year.
Intelligent traffic management system
A Gujarat-based company will be running the intelligent transport system in Chandigarh for Rs 35 crore. Under this project, there will be real-time display of bus timings and location. Display will be there at each bus queue shelter. Work will begin in January. Also, there is a provision for live coverage of 24 buses at a time through which officials can monitor the route and view inside the buses as well. Residents can get to know on their mobile phones the real-time and live location of the bus as well. Four cameras will be installed in each CTU bus besides having dash cameras as well. There are 392 CTU buses in which the cameras will be installed. All will be Tricity operation buses.
Meanwhile in Mohali
Mohali will witness MC elections this year. The number of women councillors is likely to increase in the House. Medical college-cum-hospital will become operational and Tata Cancer Hospital will start functioning from next year.
And in Panchkula
Panchkula is likely to become vendor-free as the vendors will settle in their allotted vending zones in January. ULB Director has invited and processed the tender for bio-mining of dumping ground in Sector 23, Panchkula. After bio-mining the existing dumping sites in Sector 23, the long- pending demand of the residents to shift existing dumping site from Sector 23 will be met. A drop in the number of stray dogs and cattle can be expected as the new MC Commissioner is all set to give quick respite to the citizens of the city by building temporary sheds in various corners through people’s participation.
