With Nagpur being selected as the base for several new prestigious institutions, industries are making a beeline for the city, hoping to set up a presence before land prices soar northwards.
By N.B. Rao
FOR a city that has felt neglected for decades because of alleged step-motherly treatment from politicians of western Maharashtra, Nagpur – located in the heart of India – has had an abundance of new projects being announced in recent months.
The ‘orange city’ – known so because of the popular variety of oranges grown in its neighbourhood – is buzzing with excitement as both the central and state governments are perhaps making up for decades of neglecting the city.
Last month, the HRD ministry announced that Nagpur had been selected for the first of the new lot of Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) to come up in the country. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in his budget last year, had announced that the government would open six new IIMs – one each in Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.
But so far the government has only declared Nagpur where the first of the six new IIMs will be set up. The state government, headed by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who is from Nagpur, has already offered a nearly 300-acre plot of land for the new IIM, which is expected to start classes from a temporary accommodation in the new academic season this year.
The central government has also announced the setting up of an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in the city and the state government has identified a 200-acre plot near a government medical college for the purpose. Nitin Gadkari, the union transport minister – also from Nagpur – has been pushing the city’s case and managed to get it selected for the prestigious institute.
There is also talk of Nagpur being selected for a few other premier
institutions – the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), the National Law School/University, and an Indian Institute of Technology, besides a separate agriculture university.
The central and state governments have also pushed ahead with the metro rail project for Nagpur, unlike the lethargic pace of progress being made in rolling out similar systems in cities including Mumbai and Pune. Last month, for instance, the special purpose vehicle to undertake the project – the Nagpur Metro Railway Corporation Ltd – was set up and a chairman was also named, a senior bureaucrat from Delhi.
And the long-delayed, Multi-modal International Cargo Hub and Airport at Nagpur (MIHAN), an ambitious project, which however, failed to take-off despite being announced nearly 10 years ago, is also getting the much-needed political push,
with Fadnavis and other leaders lobbying for it. MIHAN would cover a sprawling 4,000 hectares of land about 15 km from Nagpur.
Several leading American companies – including Boeing, Amazon.com, Honeywell International and Colgate-Palmolive – are planning to invest in offices, warehouses and other facilities at MIHAN. Last month, American diplomats and executives of these companies visited the MIHAN site and were keen on setting up units there. According to Maharashtra government sources, Indian IT majors including TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and HCL Technologies are also planning to put up campuses at MIHAN and other parts of Nagpur.
IT companies are showing a keen interest in Nagpur as rentals for campuses is relatively cheaper than in Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Gurgaon. Similarly, the city has a large number of trained personnel, but wage levels in the industry are not as high as in Bangalore or Gurgaon.
The flurry of announcements in recent months has boosted sentiments in the real estate market in Nagpur. When the MIHAN project was announced about 12 years ago, property prices flared in Nagpur, as investors from Mumbai, Delhi and other places began buying up land. However, the project moved at a snail’s pace, resulting in disenchanted investors, many of who also lost their money.
But now with the recent moves, property prices are once again picking up in the city. Property prices in Nagpur are also affordable when compared to Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore or Delhi. Good apartments in posh localities are available for rates of around Rs3,000 a sq ft.
Leading national developers such as Tata Realty and Infrastructure are also putting up sprawling projects in the city. They feature the latest amenities for residents. Buyers have also been snapping up the properties that are entering the real estate market.
Unlike other bustling metros and mini-metros of India, Nagpur has a relaxed pace of life. In fact, hundreds of thousands of Nagpur residents pedal to work even today. Traffic snarls are quite rare in the city, though the local authorities have invested large sums in new flyovers and widening the roads.
Located in the heart of India, major national highways – including those linking Mumbai to Kolkata and Delhi to Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai – intersect at Nagpur. However, the government has built ring roads and major by-passes to ensure that heavy trucks and other vehicles do not enter the city, reducing congestion.
A few years ago, the public works department decided to develop an 85-km-long outer ring road, connecting six national and state highways and busy roads leading to the
MIHAN complex and industrial estates at Kalmeshwar, Hingna and Butibori.
With several new institutions of higher learning coming up in the city, both international and domestic companies from the industrial and services sectors are planning to establish a base in Nagpur, as they would be assured of a steady supply of skilled personnel.
India’s zero mile
WAY back during the British Raj, Nagpur was considered to be the centre of undivided India. The British colonial authorities installed a Zero Mile Stone in the city, and had once even thought of declaring Nagpur as India’s second capital.
The zero mile stone includes four horses and a pillar made of sandstone. Even today, Nagpur is roughly equidistant from the major metros, both on the railway and national highway routes. It is about 1,100 km west of Kolkata, 800 km east of Mumbai, about 1,000 km south of Delhi, 1,000 km north of Bangalore and 1,100 km north of Chennai.
In pre-Independence India, Nagpur was the capital of Central Provinces and Berar, which comprised parts of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. In 1956, Nagpur became part of then Bombay state and when Maharashtra was formed in 1960, it became part of the state. The government also declared it as the second capital of the state.