CDP ready, Greater Berhampur to become reality soon

After a long gap of 40 years, the Berhampur city is now set to get a master plan for its planned development. The new master plan (CDP) would be Geographical Information System (GIS)-based as it would depend on remote sensing data provided by satellites as well as the ground level data collected through surveys.

Berhampur had its last master plan way back in 1969 with focus on urban growth and provision of basic amenities for a population of over two lakh by 1986. But, the mission had failed. Again, the Brahmapur Development Authority (BDA) had tried to have a master plan for the city twice in 1998 and 2004, which could not materialize due to fund crunch and other reasons. Ultimately, the Town and Country Planning Organisation (TCPO) was provided the contract for preparation of a Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) in 2008. During last four years, the technical officers and engineers of the TCPO have visited Berhampur several times and taken the satellite images of the region.

The present CDP, however, aims to provide urban development plan for the area now under the BDA which includes areas of urban bodies like Berhampur, Gopalpur and Chhatrapur and 139 adjoining villages. This would be part of the “Greater Berhampur” with a vision of development for next 30 years. The CDP would comprise a total area of 317 sq km having an estimated population of 5, 13,760 persons. Hence, the dream to form “Greater Berhampur” is soon going to be a reality. Notably, in December 2008, the State Government had declared Brahmapur as the third municipal corporation of Odisha and the gazette notification then had proposed for increase of the territorial ambit of the Brahmapur Municipal Corporation (BMC).

According to reliable sources, the proposed CDP has already identified the drainage, road, ring-road, by-pass road, Government buildings and earmarked each of these amenities in the plan including plan for expansion of road and removal of encroachments made in densely populated areas of the city. Experts suggest that the CDP would help to revamp Berhampur city into a modern metro city with state-of-art infrastructure, while others apprehend that after implementation of the CDP, encroachments made by many multi-storied buildings and commercial houses, more particularly in main roads and market areas, may face demolition and could become the victim of such modernisation or expansion, which will be known only after the full report of the CDP is received by the BDA and made public, feels a section of public. According to BDA Planning Committee member Raj Kishore Sahu, the regulation for the proposed CDP has already been finalised and will be shortly notified in the Gazette after due approval of the District Collector.

Source: The Pioneer