AP may get only 4 smart cities

October 6, 2014

The tall claims of the Andhra Pradesh government notwithstanding, the state may not get more than four smart cities.

The state government had recently proposed to develop 14 smart cities and three mega cities in the hope that the Centre will fund the project. But sources said that this was unlikely and that smart cities may come up only in Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Tirupati and Nellore. Incidentally, the former three are the ones that chief minister Chandrababu Naidu dreams of turning into mega cities.

A senior official told TOI that though the AP government has demanded a lion’s share in the smart cities programme of the central government, it may turn a reality. “It is not reasonable to demand a 10 per cent share from the Centre, which wants to develop 100 smart cities across the country,” the official pointed out. According to sources, nearly Rs 7 lakh crore will be spent on 100 smart cities in the next seven years.

The concept of a smart city is wide, with a mix of industrial development and urbanisation with high quality governance to facilitate ease of business. Various other elements that would be incorporated into these cities include IT-enabled mechanism for transactions, energy efficient network, water and solid waste management facilities and quality public transport network. In short, they will be provided with metro, BRTS, ring road, Wi-Fi connection, 24 hour water supply and power supply.

The Centre has not yet framed the guidelines on the smart city concept and a clear picture will only emerge once the detailed project report is ready. “We need a consultancy, which in turn will prepare the terms of reference for another professional consultancy to prepare the detailed project report,” said an expert who is helping the AP government on urban planning issues. The smart cities concept will be devolved on the lines of the Gujarat international financial tech city (GIFT) and the Delhi Mumbai Industrial corridor (DMIC) undertaken by the respective governments. According to an official, smart cities will have the benefit of betterment of amenities like dynamic traffic signalling system in place of static ones which have time frame fixed for 30 seconds. In this system traffic will be monitored by CC cameras and accordingly signal time will be adjusted automatically. Presently Bangalore has adopted this system in some areas.

Source:Times Of India