HYDERABAD: Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, engaged by HUDA as a consultant for Population Holding Capacity Assessment (PHCA) of different areas of the core city will submit its final report in a month.

The PHCA is a prerequisite for preparing the draft Master Plan 2020 for Municipal Corporation area given the challenging scenario of high population density and limited scope for physical growth in the core areas.

The PHC study would help in redefining the land use, plan the infrastructure and optimisation of civic amenities in different parts of core city.

Rich heritage

The IIT consultancy team headed by Uttam Banerjee who presented the preliminary analysis report on PHCA in the two-day workshop organised by the HUDA and MCH told The Hindu on Tuesday that the core city was congested but has rich heritage as well as modern development influenced by IT, MNC sector and huge investments coming its way.

The challenge is to protect the heritage while also honouring market mechanism of growth addressing transport, power, sanitation, water supply, road network, solid waste management requirements on the basis of population in different areas, he says.

"Our team went around the core areas. The city suffers from lack of road hierarchy, uniform road width, and despite best efforts of the MCH and HUDA, stagnation in basic amenities due to high population density," Dr. Banerjee said.

Feedback

"We presented our observations and got feedback from field-level officers of various agencies dealing with water supply, power, traffic and road network besides HUDA and MCH about their perspective.

Their observations will be incorporated into the final report," he added.

Additional Commissioner of MCH Dhananjaya Reddy said that the PHCA would determine the approach to be taken in the master plan.

"Land use in certain areas may have to be redefined after assessing the optimisation of each circle."

About 50 field officers from various civic service departments, including MCH, HMWSSB, HUDA, APTransco, R&B, Traffic Police, attended.

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