Mumbai: In April 2007, J.N. Patel, a Bombay high court judge, struck a deal with Mumbai-based Hogwood Commercial Developers, the real estate arm of Provogue India Ltd, to sell 44 acres of land owned by his family on the outskirts of Nagpur for Rs. crore.
The deal was reported widely, signalling Nagpur’s transformation from a sleepy provincial town to a city alive with commercial promise.
More land deals in and around the zero-mile city, so-called because it’s located in the geographic centre of the subcontinental land mass, took place in quick succession, anticipating that the proposed multinodal international cargo hub at Nagpur (Mihan) would transform the economic landscape of the Vidarbha region, infamous for farmers’ suicides.
But delays in the implementation of the project seem to have put a halt to the rise in property prices.
Sprawling across 4,354 ha (hectares), Mihan envisages an international passenger and cargo hub, a multi-product special economic zone (SEZ) and various industries that will seek to take advantage of commerce that is likely to be generated by a transport centre.
Ahead of the last general elections in 2009, three political leaders sought to take credit for bringing the project to the orange city.
They were then civil aviation minister Praful Patel, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president Nitin Gadkari and Union minister and member of Parliament (MP) from Nagpur, Vilas Muttemwar, of the Congress party.
Maharashtra’s economic survey for 2010-11 even said that the project would attract $20 billion (around Rs. 90,000 crore) investment over the next five years and create 120,000 lakh direct jobs with around 300,000 lakh being employed indirectly.
The project is being developed by Mihan India Pvt. Ltd (Mihan-IPL), a joint venture of the government of India-owned Airport Authority of India (AAI) and Maharashtra government-owned Maharashtra Airport Development Co. Ltd (MADC).
At least 50 companies, including American aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co.’s local unit Boeing India, Mahindra Satyam, HCL Technologies Ltd, DLF Ltd and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd bought 700ha of land in the proposed SEZ. None of the companies has started work at their sites yet. Boeing India president Dinesh Keskar said the MRO facility was on track and would be ready by December with two hangars for repairing planes.
The aircraft manufacturer has committed to investing $100 million to develop the MRO facility for Air India, which is buying 68 planes from Boeing.
“At this juncture, the company won’t (be) able to offer any timeline regarding starting operations at Nagpur,” said an HCL spokesperson.
The other companies mentioned above didn’t respond to queries about their plans.
Shapoorji Pallonji and Co. Ltd started building a software park but has stopped work and closed its site office. The company didn’t respond to requests for comment.
