Modi’s smart cities: Top urban planner wonders if one can have islands of prosperity amidst ocean of poverty

October 6, 2014

GIFT: A “replica” of smart city

By Our Representative
Veteran town-planning expert MN Buch has questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of building 100 smart cities across India, saying in spite of decades of knowledge in urban planning, he has failed to find any clarity on the subject. “I spoke to high officials in the Ministry of Urban Development and they told me that they too are not very clear about what is meant by smart city, even as they are trying to work out the parameters of such a city”, Buch, former vice-chairman of the National Commission on Urbanization, said.
In his commentary in Lilia Interactions, Buch, a 1957 batch IAS officer from Gujarat who received Padma Bhushan for his contribution in urban town planning, said, “I suppose one could call a city that is totally technology driven as a smart city, but technology has drawbacks, because human interaction eventually introduces so many elements of unpredictability. Therefore, at best the city re-mains smart only in part.” Currently, Buch is a senior administrator and urban planner at Bhopal.
Referring to Gujarat International Finance Tec-city (GIFT), Buch said, the very talk of a global financial city amuses him. “It follows the model of similar cities in Shanghai. In fact, it is not a new city but a sub-city that is self-contained, and with the entire infrastructure of a city providing financial ser-vices of a high order. Would La Défense in Paris be considered a smart city, or would it count as an ultra modern sub-city located in Paris? Are new towns such as Evry in the Loire Valley smart cities, or are they new towns like Milton Keynes in England?”, he wondered.
“Obviously, 100 new smart cities will be green-field ventures, separated from our existing settlements by a technology chasm. When Jawaharlal Nehru built steel plants in the middle of nowhere, whole new cities such as Bhilai, Durgapur and Rourkela came up almost overnight. An earlier example was that of the Tata-built city of Jamshedpur. I suppose in their own day and age they were smart cities. So, I presume, are new capitals such as Chandigarh, Islamabad and Brasilia”, he said.
Wondering if these cities have been left untouched by the rest of the country in which they are located, Buch asked, “Chandigarh, designed as the perfect planned city, has become like Lutyens’ New Delhi, with a green and almost imperial core – both are under heavy pressure from the rest of Delhi and the National Capital Region, and Mohali and Panch Kula, respectively. Ultimately, these new towns become oases of planned prosperity in the midst of a desert of poverty, so it is but natural that the poor drift towards the new cities in search of employment.”
Pointing out that nobody has thought about this, Buch said, “We thus have a planned city surrounded by a mass of unplanned settlements, resulting in a situation where a planned city and an unplanned city are in close juxtaposition. Can this be avoided in the 100 new smart cities? Till India achieves a level of equity and equality in income, job opportunities and lifestyles, the smart city will be the magnet, the people will be the iron filings attracted to the magnet and soon the magnet will wear an untidy beard of iron filings.”
Suggesting that smart cities are sought to be built citing movement of people from rural to urban areas, Buch said, this is just not happening in India at the required pace. He said, “Successive censuses have shown that the highest growth is taking place in the middle level towns. If we take the fifty-three metropolitan cities, they contain 19.24 per-cent of the total urban population of India, but as a proportion of the total population, they account for a little more than six per cent. This does not suggest the kind of mass movement from rural areas to urban settlements as has been experienced, for example, in China.”

Source:counterview

Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under About, Smart City

‘Include Belgaum in list of smart cities’

October 6, 2014

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was here for a while on Sunday en route to Tasgaon in Sangli district in Maharashtra, where he addressed an election rally in the afternoon.

Mr. Modi was accorded a warm reception at the Belgaum airport on his arrival by an Indian Air Force aeroplane. The dignitaries included Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Suresh C. Angadi, MP; former Minister Umesh V. Katti; Rajya Sabha member Prabhakar Kore; Vishwanath I. Patil, MLA; Mahantesh M. Kavatagimath, MLC; former MLA Abhay Patil; BJP district unit president Eranna Kadadi; and BJP Belgaum city unit president Ujwala Badavanache. Deputy Commissioner N. Jayaram, Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao, and Assistant Commissioner of Police Anupam Agarwal were present.

Memorandum

The BJP leaders presented a memorandum to the Prime Minister with a request to include Belgaum in the list of smart cities and take up Centrally aided development works in Belgaum city and other backward areas in the district. Mr. Modi was also urged to advise the Railway Ministry to consider introducing a high-speed train between Mumbai and Bangalore via Belgaum, besides doubling the existing broad gauge line between the two metro cities. The BJP leaders stressed on according priority to Belgaum city while taking up Centrally aided development works, such as research laboratories, academic institutions and promoting medium and major scale industries.

They told the Prime Minister that Belgaum was gifted with natural resources such as rivers and forests along the Western Ghats. The city nestled between the boundaries of three States viz. Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra was well-connected by rail, road and air. The city was a major educational hub in north Karnataka and also had good healthcare facilities. In view of the State government’s steps to develop Belgaum city as a second capital of Karnataka, the Centre should also encourage and support them, Mr. Angadi said.

Source:The Hindu

Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under About, Smart City

Are India’s ‘Smart Cities’ a Smart Move?

October 6, 2014

May 16, 2014 is now a historic day for democratic India, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s coalition winning an overwhelming majority. It sparked nationwide optimism, with a growing GDP, the Sensex rising over 10 percent in 4 months, and the hope of acche din (good days) for the Indian economy. As a part of the budget, the finance minister, Arun Jaitley, has promised numerous projects for this term, including the creation of 100 smart cities – or cities with sophisticated IT features.

This grandiose pledge had been envisioned by Modi as a part of the achhe din campaign from the outset. More than 7000 crore ($1.13 billion) has been allocated to the endeavor, or 70 crore per city. Insisting this was to be the seed money, the government pledged additional investments in due course. The concept is based on ecologically friendly urban settlements that exploit technology to offer a more structured living environment. Such cities would have a centralized control system that provides real-time data on the availability of water, electricity, education, public transportation and sanitation: the basic modern-day needs.

All of which begs a question: Are smart cities really important? The project’s aim is “housing for all,” and that is possible only through affordable housing. Much like other developing nations, India has high levels of rural-urban migration – the country is expected to have an urban population of 530 million by 2030, up from 390 million in 2008. Given the fast pace of development, better living standards are being sought by those with lower incomes, and a new middle class is emerging. Official data show that approximately 269 million people in India are still below the poverty line, but millions are moving out of poverty every year. It is for this rising class that the need for better living standards arises. To accommodate this growing and increasingly mobile populace, it is imperative that a sustainable model of housing be developed. But are smart cities the answer? Certainly, in theory the idea sounds very appealing. In practice, it is much less certain and the answer won’t be known until India actually builds some. India has already taken serious steps to turn certain cities into smart cities. International assistance has been sought from Singapore and Japan, among others. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between India and Japan to develop Varanasi into a smart city based on the experience of its Japanese counterpart – Kyoto.

It will be important to see what India is getting into, rather than becoming overwhelmed with the idea. The smart city concept implies an oversimplified vision of technology. It is based on the belief that technology can solve any problem without fundamentally changing lifestyles. However, can India’s problems actually be simplified to the point that they can be controlled by a large set of data points? Does this mean that the current problems are not social, but technological? Given a country as diverse as India, can the heterogeneity of its cities be accommodated in a linear vision backed by technology? These questions will be worth considering as the project proceeds. The concept, though, is immensely appealing: India is truly considered a symbol of “unity in diversity,” and this time the unity can be brought under the surmounting umbrella of technology.

The radical shift India is experiencing lifestyles and the attendant demands for a better standard of living could be answered by the concept of smart cities. The age of digitization is upon us, and it seems that sooner or later people will have to turn to technology to answer many of their problems. In Modi’s first 100 days as prime minister, a lot has been done; however, it is a short period to deliver something concrete on the technology front. Still, he has made a significant imprint with his tech-enabled beginning, and it may someday bear fruit.

In this era of digitization, it is interesting to see the nation’s leader envision such a future. On paper, the initiative seems to be an ideal plan for the poverty stricken economy, but given the high levels of bureaucracy, it will be interesting to see how it plays out. The move is very much in the right direction; execution, however, will be key.

Source:The Diplomat

Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under About, Articles, Smart City

MNCs line up for a slice of India’s smart-city pie

October 6, 2014

Big money Industry estimates there is a $35-billion IoT opportunity in<br />
India, of which smart cities are an integral part. DAVOODA/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

BANGALORE:The buzz around smart cities created after the Modi Government announced an investment of $1.2 billion to create 100 smart cities in India has multinationals like Dassault Systemes, Philips, IBM, Cisco, Intel, Schneider Electric and Bosch lining up for a slice of the smart city pie.

With products and solutions ranging from connected lighting and connected networks to simulating smart cities and building management solutions, multinationals are eyeing a $35-billion IoT (Internet of Things) opportunity in India, of which smart cities are an integral part.

Harmonious systems“Cities can be built at much lower costs if Governments invest in simulation technology. We can simulate and create physical cities along with digital cities in 3-D, which can be improved and experimented upon by the urban planning department to check whether all the elements of the city and its multiple systems work in harmony,” Chandan Chowdhury, MD – India, Dassault Systemes, toldBusinessLine.

He said it would cost $2 million – $5 million to simulate a smart city environment for a city like Bangalore. Dassault has already done a smart city simulation pilot for Pondicherry city last year along with Power Grid Corporation of India.

Cisco has partnered with Electronics City Industries Association, Bangalore, to set up Asia’s first ‘Internet of Things Innovation Hub’ within a 5-km stretch.

Seventy software and hardware firms in Electronics City along and 50 start-ups will collectively work together, building on Cisco’s network infrastructure and expertise, to design and develop products, services and solutions for a Smart Connected City, to be ready in January-March 2015. “We are using our network infrastructure to deploy digitally-enabled transportation, healthcare, education, utilities, energy grid and real estate in cities. Electronics City will serve as a replicable model of a smart connected city for the rest of Bangalore, other cities in India, and other emerging markets in the world,” said Anil Menon, President, Smart+Connected Communities, and Deputy Chief Globalisation Officer, Cisco.

Intelligent outputsIntel offers an array of smart city solutions such as intelligent transportation systems, digital security surveillance, modernisation of the public distribution system, interactive retail solutions with integrated analytics, mobile healthcare platforms, sensor-based environmental sensing platform, energy management, capital goods monitoring and factory automation. “Our intelligent transportation project has been deployed in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat,” said Satish Jadhav, Country Manager & IoT lead – Embedded Business, Intel South Asia.

Philips’ connected LED Lighting solution, that allows streetlights to be instantly connected to and controlled by a remote lighting management system, has been installed at Naya Raipur, one of India’s first few smart cities. “Philips foresees a future where lighting innovations connect seamlessly with smart controls, networks, devices and apps to improve lives,” said Sumit Joshi, Head – Marketing, Philips Lighting India. Frederick Fan, Network Connectivity, APAC region, Schneider Electric, said the company offers last mile network connectivity to buildings, from structured cabling to intelligent connectivity in all rooms. “Our key focus area is intelligent smart buildings and with the initiatives announced by the new Government, India shows the biggest potential for growth,” he said.

IBM has partnered with the Lodha Group to build and manage smart city infrastructure spanning 4,000 acres at the junction of Navi Mumbai and Dombivali. As a part of the project, IBM Intelligent Operations will serve as the backbone of city infrastructure and will centralise key city functions through real time monitoring and advanced analytics. Bosch has a digital platform of convergence which is capable of integrating audio, video, alarms, audit schemes and final projection to track traffic and secure workplaces, housing and other places of importance in a smart city. “Our smart city solutions centre around software engines where video solutions, access control, fire detection, communication products and analytics merge seamlessly and create intelligent output,” said Sudhir Tiku, Head – South Asia, Bosch Security Systems.

Source:Business Line

Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under About, Smart City

MMRDA sets ball rolling to make BKC smart city

October 6, 2014

MMRDA has also planned to introduce electric and hybrid buses to ply within the business district and the nearest stations.

A few days before the poll code of conduct set in, the Congress-led Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) had called for tenders to create Maharashtra’s first smart city, Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), the glitzy business district of the country’s commercial capital.

Building smart cities has been a major campaign agenda of the BJP and a dream project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Union government has set aside Rs 7,060 crore for the creation of 100 smart cities either by moulding satellite towns around large cities or modernising existing mid-sized cities.

The MMRDA, which was chaired by former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, on September 10 invited expressions of interest for basic smart city initiatives for surveillance, connectivity, parking facilities and citizen-centric services based on information and communication technology networks.

Naseem Khan, a Congress MLA and guardian minister for the Mumbai suburbs, said while projecting the overall infrastructure development brought about by his party, the Congress is also positioning the smart city initiative in BKC as a major achievement.

“BJP leaders are only talking about it. Congress leaders actually deliver. While they are still busy preparing the vision document for smart cities, the state Congress government has gone ahead and started tendering for a smart city,” Khan said.

Smart cities are those where data collected through sensors is used to enhance efficiency in utilities and citizens’ services such as electricity, water, drainage, gas, traffic, parking and so on, and enable real time monitoring by authorities. Effective eco-friendly transportation systems, transparent processes for commercial activities, and online approval systems are other hallmarks of a smart city.

A senior MMRDA official who did not wish to be named said, “What we are doing in BKC is just the basic first level of a smart city. We won’t reach the global standards by implementing these initiatives, but in the next five years, we will add on more smartness features with the network as the backbone and reach the level of cities such as Barcelona and Copenhagen.”

Under the plan, the MMRDA will first cover the 175-hectare area in a public wi-fi network at a high Internet speed of 5 Mbps. There would be 90 surveillance cameras with direct coordination with security agencies to keep an eye on the E and G blocks of the complex.

Visitors will be able to avail of a smart parking facility. They will know the nearest available parking slot of the 3,000 parking slots in BKC without having to manually hunt for one. This is expected to reduce unauthorised parking and will bring down the time required to park from 20 minutes to 5 minutes, the MMRDA official said.

The 841 streetlights in BKC would be equipped with solar panels to generate power during the day and utilise it after dark with motion sensors fitted on the lights so that they switch on based on requirement. Besides, citizen-centric mobile applications will be launched for emergency services, or to provide details of the nearest restaurants and so on, the official said. MMRDA has also planned to introduce electric and hybrid buses to ply within the business district and the nearest stations.

Source: Indian express

Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under About, MMRDA, Smart City

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

Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under About, Articles, Smart City

PM Modi’s US visit: US to help India develop three smart cities Allahabad, Ajmer and Visakhapatnam

October 6, 2014

WASHINGTON: In a boost to India’s 100 smart city programme, the US will help India in developing three such cities apart from joining hands with civil society and authorities to provide clean water and sewage facilities in 500 cities in the country.

The three cities are Allahabad, Ajmer and Visakhapatnam. This announcement was made after the talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obamahere yesterday.

The Indian government plans to develop 100 smart cities and in this regard an allocation of Rs 7,060 crore was proposed in the Union Budget.

While presenting the Budget for 2014-15, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said the Prime Minister has a vision of developing 100 smart cities as satellite towns of larger cities and by modernising the existing mid-sized cities.

“With development reaching an increasingly large number of people, the pace of migration from the rural areas to the cities is increasing,” Jaitley had said.

Wounding up his whirlwind five-day US visit yesterday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi “thanked” America and called his trip a highly “successful and satisfactory” one.

Source:Economic Times

Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under About, Government (Govt), Smart City

IBM CEO discusses software for ‘Smart Cities’, ‘Digital India Initiative’ with PM Modi

October 4, 2014

New York, (ANI)

The CEO of IBM, Virginia Romnetty, discussed about software for India’s pet projects like ‘Smart Cities’ and ‘Digital India Initiative’ during her meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Monday.

MEA official spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said Romnetty made this offer in response to Prime Minister Modi’s call for investments.

“CEO of @IBM Virginia Romnetty meets PM @narendramodi. Discusses software for “Smart Cities” and Digital India Initiative,” Akbaruddin said on twitter shortly after the meeting.

The Prime Minister earlier held meetings with a host of business leaders including Boeing CEO James McNerney; American private equity fund Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co CEO Henry Kravis; Laurence D. Fink, CEO of the American multinational investment management firm Blackrock; Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and General Electric Jeffrey CEO R. Immelt.

Prime Minister Modi has announced plans of developing 100 smart cities in India. With the government already allocating Rs 7,060 crore allocation in the Union Budget, the smart cities initiative has garnered the maximum attention from the IT sector as this project will rely heavily on technology because smart cities are technology-driven.

Another pet project of Prime Minister Modi, the ‘Digital India’ plan is the first tech-driven project which aims to promote digital inclusion with broadband connectivity down to the village level, thereby enabling improved access to services through IT-enabled platforms.

IBM India Private Limited is the Indian subsidiary of IBM. It has facilities in Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Gurgaon, Noida, Chandigarh, Indore, Bhubaneshwar, Coimbatore, Visakhapatnam and Hyderabad.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Modi held a breakfast meeting with CEOs of 11 top US companies, during which he is believed to have pushed India’s case as the best investment destination in Asia.

Among the eleven CEOs whom the Prime Minister met were Google’s Larry Page, David M Rubenstein of The Carlyle Group, Citigroup CEO Michael L Corbat, Doug Oberhelman of Caterpillar, Cargill President and CEO David W MacLennan, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, Kenneth C Frazier of Merck, MasterCard President and CEO Ajaypal Singh Banga, AES Corporation CEO Andres Gluski, Charles R. Kaye of Warburg Pincus and Micheal Ball of Hospira – a US-based global pharmaceutical company.

The Prime Minister departs for Washington later in the day where he is going to have a private dinner with U.S. President Barack Obama at White House tonight. (ANI)

Source-in.news.yahoo.com

Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under Digital Initiative, Prime Minister, Smart City, Software

Modi US visit: Three Indian cities to be named for smart cities project

October 1, 2014

WASHINGTON/NEW DELHI: Three Indian cities are in line to be adopted for the government’s “smart cities” project by way of technology and infrastructure upgrade during IndianPrime Minister Narendra Modi’s talks in Washington that are also set to see major cooperation with the US in the field of renewable energy.

The Modi government is keen to push ahead with its smart cities project under which 100 smaller cities are to be upgraded to match the resources of the top metros. Japan has evinced interest in developing the oldest living city of Varanasi into a smart city.

Three Indian cities are likely to be identified as part of the smart cities project during talks in Washington, said an official source declining to be named.

Renewable energy, including solar, wind and hydro, would also see cooperation with the US in the field in India. Modi has been pushing for the use of renewable energy, and the visit is expected to see major cooperation in this sector, with the US EXIM bank expected to provide the loans.

The sticky issue of India’s Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime is also to be in focus during the talks. US firms have decried India’s IPR regime as restrictive.

The US has been irked after the Supreme Court last year rejected drug major Novartis’s plea for a patent on cancer drug Glivec in April. The Indian government also last year invoked compulsory licence on BayerCorporation’s cancer-treatment drug Nexavar, permitting Hyderabad-based Natco Pharma to manufacture and sell the drug at a price lesser by over 30 times charged by its patent-holder.

The US feels that IPRs are not being adequately enforced in India and following the grant of compulsory licence to manufacture Bayer’s anti-cancer drug there is concern that there could be more such compulsory licences.

India would also be discussing the issue of totalisation during the talks. The issue has been under discussion with the US for the past several years. India has almost 300,000 Indian professionals working in the United States and they all contribute to the Social Security System of the US, but they cannot derive benefits from the system because they can only work for about seven years under the immigration regime. Under US law social security benefits are given only if a person lives there beyond 10 year

The US is asking India to enter into a reciprocal totalisation agreement and is presently studying the kind of agreements India has entered into with Canada, where too many Indians are working.

Source:The Economic Times

Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under About, Smart City

IIT-B’s techfest hosts Smart City Challenge

October 1, 2014

The permier technology institute has taken inspiration from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of building 100 new Smart Cities across the country. Gauri Rane reports

Each year, IIT-B’s Techfest focuses on development of the society through its various initiatives. This year’s theme of the annual national technology festival is to develop smart cities under the initiative — Smart City Challenge. “The motive of the competition, is to make our countrymen aware of the importance of using renewable energy sources and live in an eco-friendly environment,” says Yash Mehta, core team member, Techfest 2015. It is a brainchild of Vaibhav Kore, a core team member of the fest. “But instead of inviting ideas to design a new smart city, we thought of getting ideas/solutions to solve the problems that already exist in our cities and make them smarter and efficient,” explains Mehta.

Core members of the fest have given a multi-pronged approach to the challenge. They have come up with genres like healthcare and hygiene, trade and commerce, law and policy making and urban aesthetics along with infrastructure to develop the cities. Since all these fields are interconnected, the competition is open to students (undergraduate and postgraduate) from all streams like engineering, architecture, management, commerce, arts and design.

Over 800 teams have registered till now. In the first phase of the challenge participants have sent a report as per the problem statements in each of the above mentioned five genres. “They have to design models and sketches along with a powerpoint presentation at the end of the second round explaining what changes will their solutions bring to the current scenario and how impactful they would prove to be,” informs Mehta. The best entries will then qualify to the second round where mentors, who are experts from different fields will provide guidance on how to shape the ideas and develop them to the implementation level. The expert panel of over 50 mentors consists of IPS officers, IIT professors, corporate professionals and eminent government officers. “Getting a chance to interact with high-profile mentors is in itself a big incentive to the participants,” reflects Mehta.

Besides the prize money of Rs 5 lakhs for winners, another incentive to the participants is that, their ideas will be considered by the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (DMICDC). They will also have the opportunity to pursue summer internship at its different associated organisations.

The organising committee plans to take this initiative forward by way of collaboration with other government organisations like Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), City and Industrial development Corporation of Maharashtra (CIDCO). They have also approached the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Urban Development Ministry of the Government of India, Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD) and Urban Development Department of the Government of Maharashtra for their consideration of the event. “We have also contacted the administration of Varanasi and expressed our willingness to contribute to the development of Smart and Spiritual Varanasi in light of the pact signed between India and Japan recently,” informs Mehta.

Source:DnaIndia

Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under About, Smart City

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