Chilika Lake Global City

Bikash Choudhury


A thought of “prosperous Odisha developed India and a peaceful
World in a decade” took grip of the mind; a portion of the mind, home, family and the town rise in revolt against the audacious Idea making the limbs go numb, body partially paralyzed and mind restless; where do one find a charioteer who could guide through a uncharted territory. With this thought playing in the mind; saw the charted aircraft preparing to descend when the bird reached less than thousand feet the shellote of the city became visible; it read as CHILIKA LAKE GLOBAL CITY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT with breath taking beauty of Chilika Lake and magnificent stone statues shooting up from the centre of the lake to three hundred feet into the sky; when the aircraft got closer to the ground the statues became distinctly visible, first one was of Gandhi, second of Madhu Babu, third of Gopabandhu, fourth of Biju Babu. One eight lane Express Highway & a Metro Rail encircled the Chilika Lake. By now the aircraft was taxing on the runway and came to halt near the Aero Bridge number 7; quickly came out to pick up the luggage and straight head for the Tourist counter to collect more info about the City. The beautiful lady at the counter invited to seat on the recliner opposite her and offered a chilled glass of water before starting to narrate about the Chilika Lake Global City. “A brand new city developed in ten years with 100 billion USD for 7 million residents & 3 million floating population annually, with about 75 Km in length and 25 Km in breadth. The principal vision of the city is to attract the top minds of the world, in each walk of life, to collaborate and find solutions for the problems and challenges faced by the mankind currently and for this century. This city wish to prove rural landscape and urban high rise can co-exist in harmony with nature. Here, urban centers are interspersed between rural hubs. Urban districts provide consumers for the products & services in rural farms and in turn consume the technology & knowledge made available by urban centers with lowest transaction cost; while, rural areas thrive with organized farms & cottage industries. Urban districts populated by Education, Research & Development, Industry, Hospitality, Business, Residential, Entertainment, Sports and Religious Enclaves. The city is completely driven by green power-solar & wind and well connected by metro rail. This city has borrowed all good ideas from all top global cities and most attractive tourist destinations; therefore, you would find “Chilika Lake Global City” a very good hybrid of New York, Shanghai, Las Vegas & Macau. You will notice Chilika Lake completely spruced up and protected by a green belt. The embankments developed with promenade, parking bay for Yacht’s of rich & famous, Water sports and Jetties for Cruise. The Islands inside the lake have been developed as rural tourism hot spots while entirely preserving the natural eco-system to attract global tourist spoiled by conventional tourist destinations. The mouth of Chilika has been developed to allow small cruise ships to take a tour of the lake with arrangements to preserve & protect the natural salinity of the brackish water lake. Hostess encouraged me to take a tour of the city in the metro to have a glimpse of the City and the Chilika Lake from the air conditioned comfort of restaurant coach of the metro before joining the co-passengers of Charted Flight at the inauguration ceremony of the City in the evening. Mind you this city is designed by American Architects, supervised by German Engineers and executed by Chinese & Indian Contractors; truly a Global City for this millennium. Parked myself at the metro restaurant coach for tourist and welcomed by two young, beautiful and confident Odiya girls in traditional attire and politely escorted to a window side seat to observe the nature of the lake view and on the other side the brand new elevation of Chilika Global City. Placed an order for a soup and sandwich; and tried to look at the beautiful lake endowed with nature with an ornithologist eye and at the breathtakingly majestic city landscape in turns over spoonful hot soups in between a bite of delicious bread. In the lake side saw very happy faces of young & old in ecstasy on the decks of cruise inside the lake and on the other side Vedanta Global University & Biju Patnaik Institute of Leadership zipped passed in the Education enclave. After some time noticed well designed fishing jetties opposite the rural hubs followed by huge Research & Development Enclave with tall towers occupied by DuPont, GE, Microsoft, Google, Infosys, TCS, WIPRO Technologies and CISR all top end global institutions for research. Business districts populated by office complexes of various size and shapes with huge shopping malls teaming with tourists and shoppers. A tall spherical structure caught my attention in the hospitality district; that was the most expensive and luxurious address for the tourists. Designed with three spherical towers of 55 floors topped by a sky park for five thousand people with trees & flowering plants and complete with revolving restaurants and helipad. (Heard all the descriptions in the public address system of the metro) It took just forty five minutes to cover the seventy five Km. distance of the city from one end to the other; disembarked and took a faster metro to reach the venue of the inauguration ceremony of the city in the Entertainment Enclave; in the auditorium having five thousand seating capacity and took a seat on the front rows facing the dais; soon after, the Chief Minister of Odisha stood up to dedicate the Chilika Lake Global City to its residents and to the World. He said “the city does not belong to the people of Odisha alone; equally, if not more, it is to be shared with peace loving people of the World and would stand for Love, Peace, Innovation, Excellence and Enterprise for sustainable development of the World & Mankind.” A great and powerful thought indeed.