State revives war room for major infra projects

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government has decided to revive the war room concept set up by the previous Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP government to push key infrastructure projects in the state and to ensure their completion within a set time frame

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government has decided to revive the war room concept set up by the previous Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP government to push key infrastructure projects in the state and to ensure their completion within a set time frame.

The objective of the war room is to give a push to the projects that require coordination among various agencies and clearances which often results in their delay, according to a senior general administration department (GAD) official.

The war room will be a 10-member body headed by chief minister Eknath Shinde and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis as its co-president that will oversee and monitor all the big-ticket infrastructure projects from now on.

An order to this effect was issued by the GAD on Wednesday.

Chief secretary, additional chief secretary (finance), additional chief secretary (revenue), additional chief secretary (urban development), additional chief secretary of the chief minister, principal secretary or secretary of the deputy chief minister and principal secretary (forest) have been appointed as members of war room panel whereas director general of war room will work as member secretary of the war room, states the GAD government resolution.

Retired IAS official Radheshyam Mopalwar was appointed as director general of the war room (infrastructure projects) by the chief minister on July 27.

The war room has planned to take up a total of 36 major infrastructure and housing projects comprising ongoing and proposed projects related to the state.

Among them is Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail Corridor also known as the Bullet Train project, Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (Under PRAGATI), Vadodara-Mumbai Expressway, Pune-Nashik Semi High-Speed Rail Corridor Project, Aurangabad Parallel Water Supply Scheme (Samanter), BDD Chawl Redevelopment Project, Land for Carshed & depots at Mogharpada, Thane, Kanjurmarg, Raimurdhe (Mira-Bhayander) and Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) tunnel that is underway and needs to be fast-tracked.

The war room will follow up on projects that need to be completed within a set timeline. The list comprises Metro 3 line being implemented by MMRCL, all other Metro project taken up by MMRDA in the city, CIDCO Metro, Thane Metro, Pune Metro, Nagpur Metro, Navi Mumbai International Airport, all sewage treatment plants (STP) undertaken by BMC and Kalu Dam project near Murbad in Thane district.

The war room was first set up after ‘Mumbai First’, a policy influencing think tank and global consultancy firm ‘McKinsey’ gave a detailed presentation to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on the need to bring multiple agencies on one platform in November 2014. Its first meeting took place in May 2015.