The work on Futala Viewing Gallery and cement concrete (CC) road project is progressing fast. It is a Central Road Fund (CRF) project and the cost is around Rs 113 crore. The entire project will be completed in time.
There are three components of the project:
1) Viewing Gallery with Projector Room
2) Multilevel Parking Plaza
3) Cement Concrete Road
• Viewing Gallery with Projector Room
The length of the gallery is 350 m and the seating capacity is 4,000. Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT) is developing a multimedia laser show in Futala lake and people can watch it from the gallery. A project room is being built besides the gallery for the show. The gallery will be fully covered with a 350 m long tensile roof.
There will be parking space near the gallery. It will have parking slots for 13 cars, 24 two-wheelers and 24 bicycles.
• Multilevel Parking Plaza
A multilevel parking will be built near the gallery so that people coming to watch the show can park their vehicles. It will be a mechanized puzzle parking. There will be 1,000 parking slots for cars and 305 slots for two-wheelers.
• Cement Concrete Road
The length of the road is 2.86 kilometer. It is along the Futala lake in rear of the gallery and on approaches. It is 18 m wide and is 90% complete.
The Nagpur Heritage Committee reviewed the project on June 15 without any objection. Earlier, Maha Metro, as per directions of Public Works Department (PWD), had planned to construct a road tunnel below the gallery. However, this tunnel was dropped in January 2019 and the final drawing approved by PWD in October 2019 did not include the tunnel. NIT’s consultant for the multimedia laser show had told Maha Metro that the tunnel wall below the gallery will have acoustics problems and other technical issues. Hence, Maha Metro prepared a new design. As per the new design a cement concrete road is being built behind the gallery instead.