Government of India in 2015 launched the Smart Cities Mission in collaboration with the State Governments to identify and develop Smart Cities in the country which will also work as the light house to other aspiring cities. In an approach to develop smart cities under the Smart Cities Mission, the objective is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of ‘Smart’ Solutions. The Smart Cities Mission of Government is a bold, new initiative which details out following core elements to be included in a smart city:
First time in history, there was a challenge organized among cities to get selected under the Smart Cities Mission. The Challenge included two stages,
The Smart City Proposal of Bhubaneswar got selected and stood first in round 1 of the smart city challenge of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India. The city proposed developments in two major components namely, Area Based Development in a selected area called “Bhubaneswar Town Centre District (BTCD)” comprising and (ii) Pan City development of technological projects named as “Smart Solutions” project with social equity as a cross cutting strategy to deliver inclusive society for citizens of Bhubaneswar. The area based development comprises primarily of projects in the field of core engineering like integrated development of water supply and energy infrastructure, multi-level car parking, green parks and lakes development etc. The pan city component comprises of city wide technological interventions in the field of traffic, transit, parking, emergency response & incidence management systems, common payment card, enterprise resource planning, e-governance and a Command Control Centre for the city.
The proposal won awards, accolades and was appraised worldwide for its strategic thinking to deliver the Smart City plan.
