Some days back in my article Pollution Solutions I had written “India’s capital can be shifted to Evershine City, Vasai, Maharashtra. It will reduce people, cars and pollution in Delhi.” Today, 2 December 2017, at 8 p.m. on NDTV 24×7 the topic on The Big Fight was Change of National Capital. For some time alternatives for Delhi were discussed. Then the discussion went off-track with AAP (Ashish Khetan), BJP (Vijay Jolly), and Congress (Sharmishta Mukherjee) representatives blaming each other for problems of Delhi. Mohan Guruswamy, Prahlad Kakkar, Sudhir Vohra and Vimlendu Jha were other panellists.
Some cities like Bangalore and Madras were ruled out. One suggestion was to have a new city between Bhopal and Nagpur. Change of national capital does not mean 22 million people of Delhi or 63 million people of National Capital Region have to move to the new capital. Around 40 square miles of area is enough for new capital.
It is enough to shift national Executive, Judiciary and Legislature to new capital. President, Vice President, MPs and Supreme Court judges have to be in new capital. Ministers have to be MPs. They can live in flats. Foreign countries will shift their embassies. New Parliament House should be big enough to accommodate 1,600 Lok Sabha members. India should have one Lok Sabha member for one million. India’s population was 121 crores in 2011. India’s population is not expected to go beyond 160 crores unless other countries or territories become part of India.
Agra was India’s or Mughal Empire’s capital for many years. Shah Jahan shifted the capital to Delhi. For much of British Rule, Calcutta was the capital and Simla was the summer capital. It is said the government used to function for seven months in a year from Simla. There were Fatehpur Sikri and Daulatabad which did not last long as capital. India had many kingdoms with their capitals. The kingdoms became princely states under British Rule.
The site for new capital has to be pollution-free. It has to be hilly area so it does not flood during monsoon. It is good if airport and railway station are in the vicinity or new ones can be built.
With a new capital for India, Delhi can become a state. That will put an end to friction between Delhi Government and Central Government.
nice informative post