Adil Lateef
SRINAGAR, Nov 29: After State Government lifted ban on mobile internet, the feedback and suggestions for ambitious Srinagar Smart City Project through online platforms is picking up with more and more stakeholders including general public getting involved in the project.
The officials of Smart City Cell at Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) while terming the Smart City Project as healthy for the summer capital said the involvement of citizens will make the proposal strong and then that proposal would be sent to Government of India by the end of December for approval. The proposal, if approved, would be followed by Detailed Project Report (DPR).
The stakeholders are presenting their suggestions and feedback through an online questionnaire that is available on smartcitysmc.com, a web portal created by SMC exclusively for Smart City Project, email already published by the SMC, and through Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp messenger. The SMC has already delivered thousands of questionnaires through offline mode for the purpose.
As on date, the SMC has received 200 suggestions through questionnaires on its web portal for Smart City Project, 30,000 hits on SMC’s official website, 450 emails, 500 suggestions through Whatsapp and 389 likes on its Facebook page.. Apart from this, it has also distributed 70,000 questionnaires through offline mode and has also published such questionnaire in Valley newspapers. In all, said the officials, “we have reached approximately 4.90 lakh people through mass media”.
The draft proposal prepared for Srinagar is already placed in the public domain for citizen’s inputs on www.mygov.in. For a better understanding, a presentation of the Smart City Proposal explaining the vision, pan-city proposal and area based development has also been shared on the website. “… The citizens are given an opportunity to give feedback and propose their own improvements in the proposals drafted by the city,” the website read, underlining the importance of people in the project.
SMC Health Officer and Smart City Project Nodal Officer, Dr Shafqat Khan, said the project is people centric and besides multiple facilities that would be given to citizens. We will also try to ensure safety and security of people. “We are in the second phase of the project and we have already submitted draft proposal,” he said, adding: “people should know that this Smart City Project is for their larger benefit no matter how the situation evolves.”
He said as of now they are receiving overwhelming response from stakeholders. “Even people from outside our State are presenting their valuable suggestions,” he said, adding that so far urban mobility and disaster mitigation and management has been the highest concern of the people.
The officials at Srinagar Smart City Cell in SMC said that the project involves three ways for development. “One is retrofitting (facelift of existing structures), second is re-development (of an area chunk) and another is green development,” said Mir Altaf Nabi. He said that the thrust would be mainly on historic Old City of Srinagar and Lal Chowk commercial hub. He said development of Srinagar as Smart City would be economically viable not only for Government but also for general public as it would give major boost to heritage tourism.
As per the plan, the Srinagar once developed as Smart City would have smart infrastructure, smart services, multiple level car parking, complete wifi zones, cycling tracks, pathways, waterways, underground cabling of power transmission and other lines, artisan clusters, signages, CCTV cameras and green zones etc. What is significant is that the dense power lines would go completely underground and that not only would beautify the city but also reduce transmission/ distribution losses which are huge this time.
Given the importance of the project, Deputy Commissioner Srinagar, Farooq Ahmad Lone, who is also Commissioner SMC, today chaired a review meeting with nodal officers of various line departments and this meeting is held at 4pm everyday in order to meet the deadlines and improve the coordination between the all departments.
The Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti, in a recently held meeting stressed upon officials to speed up the process for the project and improve urban mobility. “The Government is trying aggressively to pursue this project. We want both cities (Srinagar and Jammu) to become Smart cities,” said Dr Shafqat Khan.
Dr Khan said that they people should be told that Smart City Project is a very beautiful project and it is aimed to beauty the city manifold through convergence of existing schemes. “The present city has become shabby and its defacement is taking around in the shape of illegal hoardings, painting of walls, sticking of bills and paintings outside on shop shutters.
“As such, we were proposing that not only this, we should make even the aerial view of Srinagar City better and there should be a multiple paint pattern on the rooftops,” he said.
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