Smart Cities

With national capital region grappling with heavy smog, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu recently strongly pitched for keeping environmental aspects in mind while framing smart city plans. Stressing that the severe pollution level in the NCR region is due to neglect of environment over a long period of time, he said everybody needs to do “their bit” to tackle the situation. “We have to be cautious about the environmental aspect also (in smart cities). Environment and development must go hand in hand. If you neglect environment what will happen you have the example...

The Tamil Nadu Urban Finance and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd and the city corporation held a meeting on Friday to seek opinion on the smart city proposal and also form various working groups. A senior corporation officer told TOI that the meeting was mainly held to form working groups for lake restoration and renovation, traffic movement, infrastructure planning, parks and open spaces and non-motorized transport.”The representatives were shown a power point presentation of the proposal and opinions were sought on the project. Very soon, tenders would be called for these...

Businesses in Singapore want to invest in Indian Smart Cities, with special focus on water treatment, renewable energy and technology financing, Teo Siong Seng, chairman of Singapore Business Federation, said. He was speaking at an interaction organised by the Ficci. A business delegation from Singapore is accompanying its Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on a three-day visit to New Delhi. Singaporean companies praised the government’s efforts to liberalise foreign investment and facilitate doing business. But investors complained of difficulties in accessing information on investment opportunities, a Singapore official told Business...

The first board meeting of Chennai Smart City Limited was held on Thursday, setting the ball rolling for implementation of the proposals.Following the meeting, officials are expected to put in place a project-monitoring unit to guide the departments in formulating various projects associated with Smart City proposals. The State government had formed Chennai Smart City Limited, a special purpose vehicle (SPV), for implementing proposals covering aspects such as water supply, solid waste management, non-motorised transport, stormwater drains, electrical network and integration of utilities. The SPV is set to start assessing...

Rajasthan is moving ahead at a rapid pace in terms of development of smart cities. In January this year, the Modi government announced a list of the first 20 cities to be developed as smart cities, and Jaipur and Udaipur made it to that list.Rajasthan was the first state to submit smart city plans in January this year. The state has proposed a total investment of R6,457 crore over the next five years for developing Ajmer, Jaipur, Kota and Udaipur as smart cities, as part of the Smart City Challenge....

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s smart cities project has many takers. While Nokia has already joined the bandwagon to provide solutions to the smart cities projects, here’s a little sneak peak into what tech giant CISCO has been offering. In a trip to networking company CISCO’s Global Development Centre in Bangalore sometime back, we were shown some of the solutions that could be used by the federal governments in order to make their cities smart. We list down some of these solutions that could be used to fuel PM Modi’s dream...

In the next trail of the Smart City challenge, Lucknow Municipal Corporation set to create awareness among people about the significance of Smart City Challenge among the citizens. Apart from social media promotions and other outdoor activities, LMC will now launch LED Vans throughout the city on March 29, 30 and 31 2016 the last three days of the campaign to speed up the awareness programme and engage more and more citizens for this campaign. Additional Municipal Commissioner PK Srivastava said “We are introducing multiple LED vans at various location...

The Illinois Chief Information Officer Hardik Bhatt has termed Illinois as one of the most important business partners of India as he expressed desire to collaborate with India in developing smart cities.Leading industrialists in the US have attended a ‘Make in India Week’ seminar in Chicago, during which several American companies showed interest in reaping benefits of the opportunity to invest in India. ‘Make in India’ is one of the flagship schemes of the Indian government which is aimed at transforming Indian economy from services driven growth model to intensive...

Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Tejaswi Prasad Yadav today pitched for ‘Smart Village’ over ‘Smart City’ and accused the Centre of ignoring Bihar in the selection of cities under the urban scheme.”Bihar has been a victim of partiality by the union government – whether it is in the issue of Smart City or granting any package,” Yadav said. Yadav, who reached the steel city today to take part in wedding of India’s national cricket team member Varun Aaron tomorrow, questioned the relevance behind developing cities, which were already developed while...

All India Council of Sports ( AICF) President Vijay Kumar Malhotra recently urged the Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu to include sports infrastructure in the master plan of proposed smart cities. Malhotra said it was important to promote sports disciplines popular in the region where the smart cities are located. Malhotra has suggested building of Multi-Purpose indoor halls and stadiums in the smart cities to promote sports....