IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

More than 14,000 citizens have submitted their suggestions — on sustainable mobility, waste management, healthcare, education, water, green city, safety, security, sports, e-governance, emergency services, information technology, and economic development in Pimpri Chinchwad — to the city transformation office (CTO).

Stakeholders’ meetings, with six focused areas, were conducted to collect the suggestions. In the first phase, a draft city development report has been prepared with the help of citizens, civic officials and corporators. The CTO is being handled by private firm Palladium since January.

In an effort to promote e-governance, the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) will collect property and water tax via mobile applications, e-wallets, smart cards, and other such facilities. As many as 100 municipal offices, across all eight civic zones, will be equipped for the online services.

A city transformation office will be developed shortly to tackle projects under the Smart City and Swacch Bharat schemes as well as the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana. The budget document states that national and international consultants would be appointed for the city transformation office (CTO), which will be established at the PCMC office. A provision of Rs4.5 crore has been made for the office.

The city improvement committee has decided to visit another country to prepare for the City Transformation Office as part of the smart city initiative.

A total of 14,000 citizens have given suggestions to the City Transformation Office about sustainable mobility, waste management, health care, education, water, green city, safety, security, sports, e-governance, emergency services, information technology, and economic development.

The Pune Smart City Development Corporation Limited’s (PSCDCL) chief executive officer Rajendra Jagtap addressed students at the Times NIE Newsmakers’ Meet 2018-19 on Thursday at Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Auditorium on Ghole Road. The theme for the event was ‘Pune Smart City Mission: Making it a reality’.

Around 130 budding journalists representing Times NIE member schools in the city asked Jagtap a wide range of questions tapping citizens’ concerns such as utility of roads, disabled-friendly transport and pathways, e-governance, water supply management, waste management, employment and housing facilities for the poor and cybersecurity, among others.

The top priority for the Pune Smart City Development Corporation Ltd (PSCDCL) is to see the data sets from all the departments - IoT and related environment (CCTV, drone, social media, departmental data) are pooled and this cross functional data is leveraged for different functions

Pune has deployed over 1000 IoT devices (including 1500 CCTV cameras, which are quasi IoT devices), connected with the integrated command and control centre (ICCC). The data feeds are regularly relayed from the sensors. Going ahead the many use cases will need to be explored. Pune is working with IISc and IIT Kanpur for use case development, for example, the availability of parking spaces in the city can be easily identified from sensor data; traffic movements in the city can be tracked and appropriate actions relating to reducing congestion can also be taken based on data relayed from the sensors.

On the occasion of World Toilet Day on Monday, the Toilet Board Coalition (TBC), a global, business-led partnership for digital solutions for sanitation, reiterated its commitment to deploy technologies to re-think sanitation services in cities.

Cheryl Hicks, Executive Director and CEO, TBC, said a road map to improve sanitisation has been prepared with Pune Smart City as its first city with pilot projects and digital sanitation.

BSNL’s network will spearhead technological solutions for transport, waste and water management in Pune; Smart Cities on radar

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) have signed an MoU to provide strong network systems for telecommunications operations and high speed internet services to several Indian cities, including future smart cities.

Tying up with corporates for technical expertise and support, unit aims to bring in natl and global inputs

As the national smart city mission begins to get under way in the city, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has decided to set up a Parivartan (transformation) unit to support the implementation of different projects, after it completes all standard operating procedures for the project. The cell is aimed at providing expertise, advice and technical support to the civic administration.

The Pune Smart City Development Corporation Limited (PSCDCL) officials faced opposition from residents over reports of tree cutting by the contractor working on the Dassera chowk to Laxmimata Mandir road project. The trees line the median of the road.

On Tuesday, Baner Balewadi Pashan Residents Association (BBPRA) and Vasundhara Abhiyan, a non-governmental organisation working for biodiversity conservation and restoration of hills, met Balewadi corporator Amol Balwadkar and raise concerns related to tree cutting for new concrete road from Laxmi Mata temple to Balewadi (the road section next to Elite Empire Society). The smart city consultant, a member of Patil Constructions, the contractor, was also present.

The Pimpri Chinchwad Smart City Limited (PCSCL) board of directors has asked to streamline development works in the city.

These include Wi-Fi, improvement of public transport, streetscape design, urban design, landscape design, environmental services, solid waste management, e-governance, security and surveillance.

Project for uninterrupted electricity in Aundh, Baner, Balewadi falls through after cost escalates by Rs 120 crore

Residents of Aundh, Baner and Balewadi, who were looking forward to uninterrupted power supply under the smart city project, are to be disappointed as the plan has fallen through due to increased cost and lack of funds.

Pune Smart City Development Corporation Limited (PSCDCL) along with Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has initiated 'zero waste project' for smart city areas. The areas under Aundh ward office will be covered in it. The project aims to cover Aundh, Baner, Balewadi, Bopodi and Pashan areas to promote 100% in-situ composting, said a statement released by PSCDCL.

A workshop regarding it was organised recently in Aundh. It intended at bringing different stakeholders on one page to achieve effective coordination, understand challenges and possible solutions for garbage disposal in smart cities areas.

A report by the Vishakhapatnam-based Laya Foundation and the Indian Network on Ethics and Climate Change said the city’s Smart City’s model is flawed and needs more civic engagement and adherence to sustainability. Most notably, there are serious lacunae in the manner of the execution of the Smart City project, the project leads said.

“The Pune Smart City Development Corporation is executing the project, and not the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). If the PMC had executed it, the public would have a better chance at presenting their views, and be taken into confidence while implementing the schemes. But the PSCDCL is a company, which is held by a lot of private investors as well, besides the PMC and others. This is not good for civic engagement. Besides, 75% of the funds are being spent for projects only in the Baner-Balewadi-Aundh area, and the rest for so-called city-wide projects,” said Priyadarshini Karve.

Despite funds of Rs 436 crore lying unspent for over three months, the Centre has sent Rs 16 crore more each for Pune and Solapur, the cities chosen for the Smart Cities Mission. The opposition parties have slammed the project, terming it just an ‘eyewash’, as no guidelines and deadline is set for it.

The Maharashtra government has failed to spend funds allocated for Smart Cities, Pune (Rs 150 crore) and Solapur (Rs 286 crore) for over three months. On September 2, another instalment of Rs 16 crore was sanctioned by the state for the cities, as per the order by the Urban Development Department, the nodal department to implement the project.

The Pune Smart City Development Corporation Limited (PSCDCL) in association with the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has launched ‘Zero Waste Project’ under area based development project of the smart city. The organisers of the project have decided to deploy 30 Swachta Mitras for creating awareness about the initiative, a statement issued by PSCDCL said.

The areas including Aundh, Baner, Balewadi, Pashan, Bopodi and Sutarwadi will be studied in this initiative. The data collection process for the implementation of this initiative has started. The programme will cover around 90,000 households.

With an aim on holistic economic development of Nashik and making the city more vibrant and livable, Nashik Municipal Smart City Development Corporation Ltd. (NMSCDCL) initiated a project aimed at Skill Development and Employability of the youth in the city as part of the Smart City Mission.

The project commenced on Tuesday through the successful completion of an industry academia consultative workshop held at Express Inn Hotel.

Don’t neglect towns and villages

Given the haphazard growth of cities in India, any attempt to plan urbanisation is welcome. Not many may dispute the thrust areas of the 100 smart cities project: clean water, sanitation, affordable housing, solid waste management, environment-friendly mobility and public transport and e-governance. For providing the basic services user charges will be levied. A thrust on the labour-intensive construction sector may boost economic activity and revive industries engaged in infrastructure, housing, steel, cement and electronic items. Cleaner cities not only cut pollution and public health expenditure but also improve the over-all quality of life.

With our days and nights increasingly stretched across the vastness of megacities, we’ve turned to these smart little gadgets to keep it all synchronized. It’s no accident that the most common text message, sent billions of times a year all over the world, is ‘where r u?’”- Anthony M. Townsend

The above statement is quite reflective of the society we live in wherein everyone has a mobile phone even if one doesn’t have access to clean drinking water or health care. The 375 million internet and 960 million mobile phones users in India can be a driving force for a radical change on how economic system should be running with the world’s new economic order of fast and door-step service delivery. Few months ago, I came all the way from Bishnupur to Keishampat to submit a scholarship form online by the name Ishan Udhay for my sister, for there was no good broad band internet connection in entire Bishnupur district. The cyber cafes were non-functional and the CIC (Community Information Centres) were closed. I had to skip my lunch to finish the work for the next day is the deadline for submission. It took me a long time to finish the task because of the crowding in the server of the UGC site and the poor broad band connection at Imphal. After that, I came out of the cyber café to search for a public toilet. I had to run from one shopkeeper to another to ask if there was a public toilet at Keishampat (a place at the heart of Imphal City). To my utter surprise, there was none. I had to catch an auto to go to Nagamapal beside the Ima market just to attend to my nature’s call. I happily paid whatever they had asked me, for providing me a service which I was in dire need. On that day, I realized the reality of Imphal in being a City that we live in wherein basic infrastructures development should start from the scratch in every sphere.

The inclusion of Imphal city among the list of 100 smart cities to be developed in India does not happen by chance. As Imphal acts as doorway to East Asian countries as per Modi’s Act East Policy, it is of paramount importance that Imphal city climbs towards the next level i.e. from an ordinary city to a smart city which is indeed a welcome development for the denizens of Manipur.

When we say smart city, many people have diverse opinions. Many have the view that a smart city should be a clean concrete jungle with information and communications technology as its main character. However, a smart city isn’t as simple as it sounds. In fact, it is quite complex with many factors coming into play. The question is, “Can Imphal city be developed into a smart city at its very pathetic present scenario in almost every front? Will it end up like putting on make-up to an eighty-one year-old woman to look like an eighteen year old girl?”. However, I believe that if there is a will there will always be a way.

The Government of Manipur and Imphal Municipal Corporation (IMC) have begun seeking needed support, cooperation and constructive suggestions from all in developing a good Imphal Smart City Proposal.

In a press meet held at the Old Secretariat, Imphal, Manipur Chief Secretary O Nabakishore said that Imphal is one of the 98 (ninety-eight) Indian cities selected for Smart Cities Mission.

These 98 cities were selected through a competition called City Challenge Stage-I wherein more than 5,000 Indian cities participated.