“Quality township projects are the next big thing here, a bungalow at the cost of an expensive flat in the best areas, with amenities of international levels—security, emergency services, etc,” says Nagpur’s most prominent builder Nandkumar Archandani, better known as N Kumar. Having built most of the city’s taller buildings and its biggest mall-multiplex, Archandani—he has had his share of legal wrangling, another big city trait—says Nagpur can provide the same quality of life as in Bangalore, but at a lower cost. “Which would you pick then?”

His “mall culture” is welcome, especially to youngsters. “It’s developing fast, very fast,” says Nitin Soni (18), a regular at the city’s new coffee shops, the sprawling theme gardens and a lakeside they call Chowpatty, a reference to Mumbai’s seafronts. “It’s fabulous to see so much change, but we’re still not a mini-Mumbai,” he adds. For, he still cycles to college or hitches a ride with a friend, then often returns home to the tedium of load-shedding. There will also be an inevitable struggle on CNG enforcement and an unplanned sewage system releasing two-thirds of its contents minus any treatment into natural courses must be overhauled.

Clearly, broad roads—credited mostly to former civic commissioner T Chandrashekhar—and lush cityscapes don’t make a Tier I city. According to Dhananjay Deodhar, owner of The Great Maratha, a hotel in the MIDC area at Hingna Road with a permit room, rooms, banquet halls and a strobe-lit dance floor lying vacant for two years now, the authorities need to loosen up a bit. “I can’t even sell a cup of coffee to those leaving midnight shifts from nextdoor units,” he complains about his 24-hour coffee shop licence being revoked. Ditto for his orchestra performance licence and those of several others in the disco-pub-‘‘dancing floor” industry. Orchestras, DJs and dancing is now permitted only in hotels that have at least a three-star rating, which means Nagpur has barely a handful of pubs, no discotheques worth mentioning and a host of irked dance-bar owners with idling investments.

... contd.