Ghaziabad Development Authority okays Master Plan-2031

The Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) board in its meeting held in Meerut on Saturday has approved the draft of the new Master Plan-2031 for Ghaziabad city, Loni and Modinagar/Muradnagar. The board also approved a public-private partnership (PPP) model for ropeway projects in Ghaziabad city.

The board meeting was chaired by Surendra Singh, the divisional commissioner, who is also the chairperson of the authority. The new master plan is geographic information system (GIS)-based and proposes about 95 hectares of additional housing development in three areas, which include about 50 hectares in Ghaziabad city. The city has 522 square kilometres of geographical area.

A master plan clearly lays out different areas as per their land use such as residential, commercial and industrial, among others. According to the norms, about 42% of total land use is earmarked for residential purposes, while 5% is for commercial use. Also, about 7-8% is earmarked for industrial land use.

“The draft Master Plan-2031 has been approved and it will now go for the public objection stage for 30 days. Thereafter, it will be sent to the Uttar Pradesh government for a final approval. The 2031 plan also includes the special development areas (SDA) along the Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) project. For this, an SDA authority will also come up later,” said GDA chairperson Singh.

The two SDAs will come up at Guldhar and Duhai on the Delhi Meerut Road along the RRTS network and will have an area of 250 hectares and 400 hectares respectively. Under the SDAs, the authority has proposed hubs where planned development of residential, commercial and industrial activities will be carried out.

The SDAs will take shape in the form of townships near the RRTS project.

“We have also proposed the development of a major township with residential, commercial, industrial and logistics hub at Bhojpur (near the Ghaziabad-Meerut border). We have land available at the site and this area is 25 minutes away from Delhi via the Delhi Meerut Expressway. It also has the Eastern Peripheral Expressway in the vicinity and people will also get access to the upcoming Ganga Expressway (Meerut to Prayagraj), which has been already proposed to be linked with the DME,” Singh added.

“Before going ahead with the ropeway projects, we want a detailed study on the feasibility of routes. The proposed ropeway project from Mohan Nagar to Vaishali will be studied further and we think that it will be more feasible if we connect this route with a Metro link. This will give city commuters access to various areas in Delhi. The committee of officers will include those from the traffic police, municipal corporation, district administration and GDA, among other departments,” Singh added further.

The GDA has proposed four routes for the ropeway project. Apart from the Mohan Nagar to Vaishali route, which has been finalized, the three other routes will connect Vaishali to Sector 62 (Noida), New Bus Adda to old Ghaziabad railway station and river Hindon Metro station to Raj Nagar Extension. A feasibility study is being conducted by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for the three other ropeway routes.

GDA officials said that the ropeway projects have been envisaged as alternate to Metro rail and will cost about 85-90 crore for each kilometre. Ghaziabad city is already linked to the Metro network’s Blue and Red Lines.