The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is all set to make arrangements at the sprawling Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) grounds in the Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) for the January 19 event in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Metro 2-A and 7 lines along with several other civic projects.
This will be the first time that the BMC will make arrangements and provide all the logistical facilities at the BKC ground, which actually falls under the jurisdiction of the MMRDA. Civic officials said that the reason behind this is that most of the projects that will be inaugurated belong to the Mumbai civic body.
“Since majority of the projects that will be addressed on January 19 belong to the Mumbai civic body, hence the onus for preparing for the event lies on us. It is only the Metro line network that belongs to the MMRDA, rest of the projects are being conceived and implemented by the BMC,” said a senior official requesting anonymity.
On January 19, PM Modi is likely to formally announce the BJP’s campaign for the upcoming civic body polls, which is likely to be held during the first half of 2023, by performing a Ground Breaking ceremony (Bhoomi-Poojan) for several big-ticket civic projects.
The projects include, road concretization works in Mumbai worth Rs 6,000 crore, seven new sewage treatment plants at a cost of around Rs 26,000 crore and with three civic hospitals that will be reconstructed and transformed into super-specialty hospitals.
The PM is also expected to disburse Rs 10,000 each to one lakh street vendors in Mumbai digitally during the programme, under the PM Svanidhi scheme.
On Thursday afternoon, a meeting was chaired by municipal commissioner and state appointed administrator Iqbal Singh Chahal. The meeting was attended by the Additional Municipal Commissioners, zonal Deputy Municipal Commissioners along with the Joint Municipal commissioners and selected ward officers.
During the meeting, it was decided to make arrangements for 75,000 people at the BKC ground, which would include creating parking facilities, chalking out the floor plan of the event as well as beautification and illumination of the areas in the vicinity of the MMRDA grounds.
The officials said that the roads and highways connecting the MMRDA grounds with the airports of Mumbai will be illuminated with aesthetic lighting and digital hoardings will be set up to welcome the Prime Minister.
“We had already carried out multiple beautification works in these stretches in December during the G-20 summit. We will have to brush-up the existing facilities in order to make them more appealing,” the official said.