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CIDCO – India’s Premiere Town Planning Agency!

When it says, ‘We make Cities’, CIDCO does not solely attribute this claim on the creation of eminent housing infrastructure – rather various urban development projects, some of which are very unique, fully justify CIDCO’s legendary vision in city planning & development. 

City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Ltd., is a company wholly owned by the Govt. Of Maharashtra and was incorporated on 17th March 1970, with the specific aim of decongesting Mumbai city and at the same time creating a new planned, self sufficient and sustainable city on the mainland across Thane creek adjoining Mumbai. What began as a mission to decongest Mumbai ended up in the creation of one of the largest planned city known today and elevated CIDCO into the position of India’s premier town planning agency. 

The journey that CIDCO embarked upon, since its inception, has seen the highs and lows of varying magnitude. Challenges of monstrous proportion have presented themselves before the young, yet wise, eyes of CIDCO and the Corporation has faced them head-on without wavering in its path of steady progress. CIDCO owes its invincible attitude mainly to the think tank of pioneers and visionaries who helm the organisation and guide it in the right direction. 

Growth without proper planning is always a constraint, this statement proved true in the case of Mumbai, as the city was gripped in a strangle of deteriorating basic necessities, as the population incursion made possible by the vehement growth of industrial and commercial infrastructure that happened in the decade of 1960. Development inputs could not keep pace with the rapidly growing population, industry, trade and commerce. To improve the situation, Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Planning Board recommended considering a twin city across the harbour to facilitate the decongestion of Greater Mumbai and CIDCO was entrusted with developing necessary social and physical infrastructure. 

With a wide spectrum of activities, CIDCO is a multi faceted and multi disciplinary organization having 1,750 employees, which includes planners, architects, engineers and other professionals. Since its inception, CIDCO has diversified its working spectrum to accommodate new activities, even though its primary attention is still concentrated in overlooking the constant development of Navi Mumbai. The multidimensional activities undertaken today by CIDCO can be classified under these three broad concepts: 

• Planning and Development of New Towns.
• Consultancy. 
• Project Management and Designing. 

The Concept of New Towns has evolved manifolds under the competent expertise of CIDCO, CIDCO is designated Special Planning Authority by Government of Maharashtra for new towns to fulfill the following objectives: 

1. Reduction of population overcrowding in core cities 

2. Absorption of emigrants and preventing the emigration of present population by providing better conditions 
and new opportunities 

3. Setting the industrial pace of the State with the help of balanced urban development 

4. Provision of excellent socio-economic facilities, thereby improving the quality of life

CIDCO Developed Cities: 

Navi Mumbai (34400 sq. m.) 
New Nanded (172 Ha.)
Oros-Sindhudurg (430 Ha.) 
Waluj (8571 Ha.)
Aurangabad Fringe Area (15184 Ha.) 
Khopta (9400 Ha.)
Jalna New Town (470 Ha.) 
New Aurangabad (1012 Ha.)
New Nashik (398 Ha.) 
Vasai-Virar Sub Region (38000 Ha.)
Meghdoot, New Nagpur 
Chikhaldara Hill Station (1953 Ha.)
Latur Fringe Area (25131 Ha.) 


CIDCO has achieved great deeds and global praise over the years, but its greatest contribution to the country and mankind has been Navi Mumbai. Planned on paper with clinical precision and farsighted vision, Navi Mumbai came into being from a state of clandestine non-existence. CIDCO like a royal sculptor tamed the raw expanse of 344 sq. km, as the world watched in marvel and ecstatic wonder the transformation of blue print into an all accommodating futuristic city. 

Navi Mumbai has become a unique project by virtue of its – pattern of development, housing, social and physical infrastructure, method of finance and sustainable futuristic planning. Navi Mumbai is known extensively for its judicious planning; earning the city a reputation of being a Super City and one of the largest planned city on Earth. CIDCO adopted polycentric pattern of planning and development of Navi Mumbai. It prepared a master plan in October 1970 and was approved by the government in August 1971. It is being modified from time to time as per the needs. The pattern ensured balanced land and even distribution of residential areas, job centres, wholesale markets, non-polluting industry and population density. Today, Navi Mumbai is endowed with an entire gamut of infrastructure facilities. Whether it is physical, transport, housing, educational, healthcare, hospitality, religious, economic or environmental infrastructure, the city has the best of all. 

The infrastructure of the city is at par with that of any well developed city around the world and the very fact that the city's educational and employment infrastructure lays a very strong and dynamic foundation in the development and nourishment of the city's Human Resources, carving a future generation that will be independent and at par with their contemporaries around the world. Infrastructural development, with regards to the Navi Mumbai International Airport, CIDCO Exhibition Centre, SEZ, and Navi Mumbai Metro will help business and companies from around the country and from international quarters enter the versatile market of Navi Mumbai. Projects of international importance are providing the city with ample opportunities in regards with trade and commerce while simultaneously carving the city into a Global Hub. The entry of new business and companies will lead to increase in the number of job opportunities furthering the increase in population and increase in the demand of housing stock in the city. CIDCO, as the efficient planner of Cities, has already begun preparations to accommodate this prospective and definitive influx coming its way in the near future. 

CIDCO today has the reputation as the premier town planning and infrastructure agency in India, so when CIDCO says, ‘We Make Cities’ the Corporation actually means it. 

Formation of CIDCO

The City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Ltd., was a necessity and Navi Mumbai- the land of comforts and luxuries - is its invention.

In the decade of 1951-61 population of Mumbai rose by 40 per cent and in the corresponding decade it shot up by 43.80 percent. The rapid growth rate of population made possible by the increasing industrial and commercial importance of the city, resulted in a fast deterioration in the quality of life for the majority of people living in the city. Development inputs could not keep pace with the rapidly growing population, industry, trade and commerce. Besides, there were physical limitations to the growth of the city built on long and narrow peninsula, which had very few connections with the mainland. 

On realising the emerging problem, in 1958 the then Government of Bombay appointed a study group under the Chairmanship of S.G. Barve, Secretary of the Public Works Department, to consider the problems of traffic congestion, deficiency of open spaces and play fields, shortage of housing and over-concentration of industry in the metropolitan and suburban areas of the city, and to recommend specific measures to deal with these. 

The Barve Group submitted its report in February, 1959. One of its major recommendations was that a rail-cum-road bridge be built across the Thane Creek to connect peninsular Bombay with the mainland. The Group felt that the bridge would accelerate development across the Creek, relieve pressure on the city's railways and roadways, and draw away industrial and residential concentrations eastward to the mainland. The Group hoped that the eastward development would be orderly and would take place in a planned manner. 

The Government of Maharashtra accepted the Barve Group recommendation. To examine metropolitan problems in a regional context the government appointed another committee chaired by Prof. D.R. Gadgil, then Director of the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune in March, 1965. The committee was asked to formulate broad principles of regional planning for the metropolitan regions of Bombay. Panvel and Pune and make recommendations for the establishment of Metropolitan Authorities for preparation and execution of such plans. 

The board recommended that the new metro-centre or Navi Mumbai as it is now called, be developed to accommodate a population of 21 lacs. The recommendation was accepted by the government of Maharashtra. Accordingly, the City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Limited was incorporated on 17th March 1970 under the Indian Companies Act, 1956. By February 1970 the government notified for acquisition of privately owned land covering 86 villages and admeasuring 15,954 ha. within the present limits of Navi Mumbai. Land belonging to further 9 villages, admeasuring 2,870 ha. was additionally designated in August, 1973 for inclusion in the project area. In March, 1971 CIDCO was designated the New Town Development Authority for the project. In October, 1971 CIDCO undertook to prepare and publish a Development Plan as required by the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act (1966). 

The corporation started functioning as a company fully owned by the State Government with initial subscribed capital of Rs. 3.95 crores from the government. It was entrusted with developing necessary social and physical infrastructure and was also entitled to recover all cost of development from sale of land and constructed properties. 

The growth of Navi Mumbai was aimed at decongesting Mumbai in respect of both population and commercial activities by shifting industries, market and office activities making the new city sustainable physically, economically and environmentally. The new city projected to accommodate 2 million people and 7,50,000 jobs in next three decades.The impact of Navi Mumbai on the growth of Mumbai was reflected in 1980s. The 1991 Census recorded a 10 percent decrease in population growth rate for Greater Mumbai, compared to the previous decade. For the island city (a part of Greater Mumbai) growth in the decade of 1980s was negative for the first time. The reason for this phenomenon can partly be attributed to the growth of extended suburbs, and partly to Navi Mumbai which provided an alternative path to growth. 

Mission

“To plan and create environment-friendly, model urban settlements with fullfledged physical and social infrastructure to meet residential, commercial and industrial need of population at present and in the years to come."

Objectives

The State Government had adopted the following objectives for the Navi Mumbai Project:

1. To support State-wide location policies which will lead eventually to an efficient and rational distribution of industries over the State, and to a balanced development of urban centres in the hinterland.

2. To provide physical and social services which raise living standards and reduce disparities in the amenities available to different sections of the population.

3. To provide an environment which permits the citizens of the New City to live fuller and richer lives – free, in so far as this is possible, of the physical and social tensions which are commonly associated with urban living,

4. To provide training and all possible facilities to the existing local population in the Project Area, to enable them to adapt to the new urban setting and to participate fully and actively in the economic and social life of the New City.

For more details : http://www.cidco.maharashtra.gov.in