Maharashtra's Vision 2015

The state government is working on a plan for Maharashtra called Vision 2015. The bureaucrats in Mantralaya will make a presentation before the cabinet meeting which will be held this week. Chief secretary J P Dange said that the vision document will primarily have items promised by the government in the election manifesto. “We will have many other programmes too, which will be implemented till 2015.’’ Several secretaries have been asked to prepare documents for their departments. “The government had said that it wants all families in the state to be lakhpatis. The per household income is now Rs 45,000 and we want it to be raised to Rs 1 lakh in 2015. Besides, the government has also promised to rid the state of load-shedding,’’ Dange added. According to the chief secretary, the MMRDA has undertaken work of Rs 1.5 lakh crore. “The same projects will be completed.’’ An Urban Development Department (UDD) official said that by 2015, there will be 11 major cities in the state and nearly 50% of the state will stay in cities. “We have proposed that regulations must apply to an area beyond 10 km after the city ends,’’ the official said. Besides, the UDD has a plan to develop a high-speed railway corridor from Virar to Churchgate. It is promoting cluster development of old buildings, MUTP-II and wants to flag off the international airport project. A retired IAS officer said that in 2000, the then chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh had asked his officials to prepare a vision document. It was a well researched document, but many senior IAS officers dumped the plan as it was prepared by an IAS officer who was junior to them. “We have included the government’s manifesto, so no one can dump the vision 2015 plan,’’ he added.