Chhattisgarh: Naya Raipur to be renamed Atal Nagar

Bhopal: Chhattisgarh’s new capital, Naya Raipur, will be renamed “Atal Nagar” after the late former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the Chhattisgarh Cabinet chaired by chief minister Raman Singh in Raipur on Tuesday.

“It has been decided that Naya Raipur should be renamed as ‘Atal Nagar’ after the late former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who was instrumental in the creation of Chhattisgarh, which was carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000, Mr Singh said while briefing the local media on decisions taken at the meeting of his Cabinet.

Naya Raipur is India’s sixth planned city after Jamshedpur (Jharkhand), Bhubaneswar (Odisha), Gandhi Nagar (Gujarat), Chandigarh (Punjab and Haryana), and Navi Mumbai (Maharashtra) and fourth among the capital cities of the country.

Naya Raipur, which is emerging as one of India’s best planned smart cities in India, has wowed Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu who had visited the newly developed city around four years ago before planning the new capital of AP, Amaravati.

He had then famously observed that he was amazed to find that such a modern city could be developed in such a short span of time.

One of the key features of the smart capital is the provision of an underground utility corridor, which meant services including water supply, sewerage, telecom and electricity are developed underground.

The Naya Raipur Development Authority (NRDA) maintains 55 reservoirs, which is viewed as unprecedented in terms of water management.

The Chhattisgarh Cabinet also decided to unveil a statue of the late former PM in Naya Raipur besides establishing an Atal memorial in the new capital.

Bilaspur University and Rajnandgaon Medical College in Chhattisgarh will also be named after Vajpayee, who passed away on August 16.