Taking the multi-level car park-cum-commercial complex project proposal in the city forward, J.R. Lobo, MLA, Mangaluru City South, on Monday, began holding a series of consultations with land owners whose land is required for the project.
According to Mr. Lobo, the next meeting will be held on November 7. He told The Hindu after the meeting that the project is slated to come up on public-private partnership (PPP) model. “The land owners are demanding prime areas of the building project for them. Whoever would invest in the project would also require prime areas. Hence, a consensus would have to be arrived at on sharing. This would require a series of consultations,” he said.
Officials of the Mangaluru City Corporation also participated in the meeting.
It was in July 2014 that the council of Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) withdrew the project given to the Mangaluru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) after the latter did showed no effort for five years towards making the project a reality at Hampankatta. Of the 215.50 cents of land available at the old service bus stand at Hampankatta, the civic body owns 155 cents. The remaining 60.50 cents – that house five buildings – belong to three private parties.
Project cost
The then Urban Development Minister Vinay Kumar Soarke had said that the government could sanction 50 per cent of the project cost through the Directorate of Urban Transport Authority (DUTA) under the Urban Development Department. The government wanted to reduce the density of vehicles in city corporations in the State. Hence, DUTA had been constituted with an objective to coordinate planning and implementation of urban transport projects and programmes.
According to Mr. Lobo, the city corporation now has sought the professional guidance of the Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation (KUIDFC) to implement the move. He said that the KUIDFC would act like a consultancy on design, finance and implementation aspects.
Mr. Lobo added that matters related to building a modern central market building were also discussed in Monday’s meeting. It would be discussed again on November 7.
