STRETCHING THE LIMITS

Raipur to grow bigger and better, thanks to the state government’s proposal for the greater capital region

- SRAVANI SARKAR

Blink and you will miss it. As you drive along the 40km-long west-east stretch of NH-53, the boundaries blur and you wonder where Chhattisgarh’s twin cities of Durg-Bhilai end and where its capital Raipur begins. It can prove illusory even to an alert traveller, as it is one long urban sprawl with wide roads, flyovers, commercial establishments, beautified public spaces and, of course, the quintessential city traffic. And, though further ahead, roughly 10km of the 25km stretch between Raipur and the newly developed Atal Nagar-Nava Raipur is not yet fully urbanised, it still seems like you are traversing through a single mega city instead of four different cities. The import of this organic merging of cities was not lost on the government, which hopes to harness the unique potential it offers to come up with a greater capital region (GCR). The government is planning to merge Raipur, including Nava Raipur, with the neighbouring Bhilai, Durg and smaller towns to form a GCR. “The State Planning Commission has already prepared its recommendations in this direction, which are being reviewed,” Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel told THE WEEK in an exclusive interview.

Once it comes into being, the GCR will not only be the first such mega urban agglomerate in central India, but also only one of its kind outside the metro capitals of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. This is because the GCR will be based on organic urban clustering of cities and towns in two neighbouring districts in a small state that is still considered to be developing, said experts.