India News | Greater Chennai Corporation Incorporates Learnings from Smart Cities Mission into Its Other Projects
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The concept of the Centre's Smart Cities Mission is also being implemented in "regular projects" that are executed by the Greater Chennai Corporation through various other funding sources, Tamil Nadu Additional Chief Secretary J Radhakrishnan said.
Chennai, Nov 29 (PTI) The concept of the Centre's Smart Cities Mission is also being implemented in "regular projects" that are executed by the Greater Chennai Corporation through various other funding sources, Tamil Nadu Additional Chief Secretary J Radhakrishnan said.
In an interview with PTI, Radhakrishnan, who is also the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) commissioner, said the Smart Cities Mission has evoked a lot of enthusiasm among people and that is why the participation is high.
"Ultimately, what happens is that we learn from a lot of other smart cities projects and areas... so we have taken down that concept into our own projects," he said.
Chennai was selected as one of the first 20 smart cities by the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry.
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The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government launched its flagship Smart Cities Mission (SCM) on June 25, 2015, and 100 cities were selected for redevelopment through a two-stage competition from January 2016 to June 2018.
Radhakrishnan said cities need to learn from each other and implement the best practices in their regular projects.
"We are not doing it (implementation of Smart Cities Mission) just as a programme that is limited to the Rs 1,000-crore allocation they (Centre) have given for the projects we have undertaken, but we are building that concept into all the other projects that we are taking up through various (other) funding sources," he said.
The additional chief secretary said the concept of Smart Cities Mission is also being implemented in regular programmes like 'health walk track'.
Earlier this month, Chennai developed a Tokyo-inspired 'health walk track'. The 8-km track is part of the Tamil Nadu government's initiative to promote an active and healthy lifestyle among people.
The 'health walk track' also has space for parking vehicles and civic amenities.
As part of a World Bank scheme, Radhakrishnan said, the state government has been doing a lot of pedestrian-friendly activities in the city.
He said he is now trying to link the concept of Smart Cities Mission with his plan to set up "smart clinics" and "smart toilets" in Chennai. These smart clinics will have digital records of patients visiting there, he said.
"Under the Smart Cities Mission, Chennai has been doing a number of activities. Specifically, we have created a command and control centre. Then, we are constructing a very important green building, which has been awarded the highest rating by the Great Building Congress recently," he added.
Talking about the development of the pedestrian plaza in Pondy market under the mission, Radhakrishnan said, "The area, which used to be very, very congested, has been transformed into a very effective business district where people are having all kinds of activities, including entertainment, due to which footfall in the market area has increased and business has improved. People are now enjoying their shopping experience."
In May this year, the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry extended the deadline for the Smart Cities Mission till June 2024 following requests from some cities that sought more time to complete their ongoing projects.
India's current urban population of around 46 crore is projected to double in the next 25 years.
According to the ministry, it is estimated that close to Rs 500 lakh crore of investments in India's cities and towns would be needed to support this rapid urbanisation, a multiplier of 166 times over 25 years (taking current annual urban investments of Rs 3 lakh crore into account).
The Greater Chennai Corporation said that an Integrated Command and Control Centre has been set up which involves leveraging information provided by various departments and providing a comprehensive response mechanism for the day-to-day challenges across the city.
This is an integrated view of all smart initiatives with a focus on serving as a decision support engine for city administrators.
Various smart elements are able to use the data and intelligence gathered from operations of other elements so that civic services are delivered a lot more efficiently and in an informed fashion, an official of the corporation said.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)