Nagpur: Brijesh Dixit , managing director of Mahametro , feels that transit oriented development (TOD) will check the urban sprawl of Nagpur by providing opportunity to more people to live inside the city. "This will improve the quality of life of Nagpurians. Earlier, vertical growth was discouraged due to lack of public transport but now the entire picture has changed," he said while addressing a seminar on TOD on Thursday evening.The Mahametro chief further said that Nagpur Metro was the first one to have TOD since its inception. "TOD has improved the financial viability of the project. Whenever Metro is built in a city its land value increases. We will do land value capturing by commercially utilizing the space around Metro stations and other important sites," he said."When TOD is implemented, more and more people will live along the Metro corridor and use of private transport will go down. They will live, work, go to schools, colleges and hospitals in Metro corridor," Dixit added.Stressing on a need for a Metro in a big city, he said that Metro had 12 times the carrying capacity of city bus service. "People today have to travel long distances on two-wheelers in 45 degrees C. Soon they will travel in air-conditioned modes of transport," Dixit said.Dipak Mhaisekar, chairman of Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT), said that metro region would not compete with Metro corridor but would bring in more ridership for the Metro. "People living in satellite townships will travel to the city using the Metro," he added.The NIT chief said that unless plot amalgamation was done, 59% area of the Metro corridor would not be able to take advantage of TOD policy. "Plot amalgamation is must if you want higher floor to space index (FSI). Architects must deliberate on how to efficiently use additional FSI," he added.The gathered builders architects urged MLA Sudhakar Deshmukh to make an official representation to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to make some changes in TOD policy mainly regarding side margins and projections above 4.5 metre height. This has been done in other places.Earlier, Mahametro official Sandip Bapat introduced the concept of TOD to the gathered architects. He explained how Hong Kong had increased the ridership of its Metro through TOD. "Land value in Delhi and London increased after introduction of Metro. Same will happen here," he said. Office-bearers of Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) explained the finer points of TOD.

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