IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Public servants, Akshaya entrepreneurs, organizers of common service centers and volunteers will be included in the action force.

The district administration has formed an action force to make the district digitally smart. A meeting of various government departments and voluntary organisations held at the Collectorate conference hall here the other day decided to form a panchayat-level action force. Public servants, Akshaya entrepreneurs, organizers of common service centers and volunteers will be included in the action force.

Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy today said the first phase of the SmartCity project, which will be home to knowledge-based companies, will be inaugurated in December this year.

After reviewing progress of the project at the 45th Board of Directors meeting at SmartCity Pavilion at Kakkanad about 18 km from here, he also said the second phase of the project would be launched in the same month.

SmartCity Kochi, spread over 246 acres in the IT corridor of Kochi, is a hub for all Information and Communication Technology (ICT), media, finance and education (research) companies, attracting them from within India and overseas.

During Pitroda’s earlier visit in January, 2012, ten projects were discussed and proposed by him. The other five projects including the High Speed Rail corridor will be taken up by the State Government. All the projects will come up in Public Private Participation (PPP) mode. A co-ordination committee with the Chief Secretary as its head has been constituted to work out details. Another round of talks would be held in August before finalising the projects and they will be launched in the next one year.

The Kochi Corporation has constituted a committee for wrapping up the formalities.

With the deadline for completing the pre-qualification norms of the ‘Smart City’ programme fast approaching, the Kochi Corporation has constituted a committee for wrapping up the formalities.

A meeting of the committee headed by the corporation secretary was held on Wednesday. “The panel, which has the heads of departments as its members, will meet on Friday to take stock of the situation,” said V.R. Raju, secretary.

Kochi Smart City will be opening on February 20.

A final review meeting was held on Saturday to finalise the programme for the February 20 opening of Kerala’s much-delayed mega IT project - the Kochi Smart City.

The review meeting was chaired by Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson and other top officials from the state government and representatives of project partner, Dubai Holdings.

With Cochin Smart Mission Ltd (CSML) authorities failing to implement most of its projects three years after its inception, chief secretary Tom Jose has set November 10, 2018, as the deadline for starting all the works. Jose had convened a meeting of CSML officials on Saturday to review work progress.

At the meeting, Smart City Mission officials informed the chief secretary that many projects were in the tender stage and work could begin in two or three months after completing tender procedures.

There is a need to transform Indias smart city mission into a 'citizen-centric system' like in many foreign countries to ensure greater public participation, former secretary to the Ministry of Urban Development M Ramachandran said on Friday. Inaugurating the 'Smart City Workshop: Sustainable Urban Development' here, he said the purpose of a smart city was improve the quality of life of its people.

He said such an endeavour should provide clean environment, jobs and and safety. Ramachandran said the public transport systems in the country were inadequate and providing smart transport solutions was a big challenge to the government and policy-makers.

A team from Cochin Smart City Mission Ltd (CSML), which is implementing the Centre’s Smart Cities Mission projects here, conducted a site inspection on Friday to review the progress of the projects under mission.

The team was accompanied by officials of Project Management Consultant which is supporting CSML in overall implementation of the projects.

Under the Smart City, the selected local body can devise projects worth ` 1,000 crore which should be implemented in five years.

With the deadline for completing the Smart City Mission projects, which were allotted under the 100 Smart City programme of the Centre, going to end in 2020, it will be an uphill task for the Cochin Smart City Mission Ltd (CSML) and Kochi Corporation to complete the entire work within this time.

Mayor says Kochi chosen out of political compulsion

Although Kozhikode lost the Smart City Project to Kochi, the civic body can still hope to get into the list of aspiring Smart Cities in the country.

At present, the State has been allotted just one city among the total number of 100 Smart Cities distributed among the States and Union Territories in the country on the basis of an equitable criteria. The Union Ministry of Urban Development has clarified that the list, especially the first 20 priority cities, will be announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 1.

Kerala Kozhikode economy, business and finance social infrastructure Centre’s flagship urban development programme to be launched this month

Kozhikode is likely to miss the Centre’s ambitious smart city project. One of the major reasons cited is that the civic body failed to make efforts to meet the criteria fixed and submit a report in this regard.It will be a major embarrassment for Kozhikode when Prime Minister Narendra Modi launches the Centre’s flagship urban development programme later this month.

Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kochi, Thrissur, and Kozhikode Corporations and Malappuram and Kannur municipalities have been chosen in the State for the smart cities project considering the fact that development in these towns showed a continuous urban character.

The newly formed Malabar Development Initiative (MDI) feels that enough had not been done to get Kozhikode into the list of Smart Cities. Representatives of trade, industry, healthcare and other fields have formed the MDI to work for the development of Malabar region.

“This was a golden opportunity for Kozhikode to improve its infrastructure and become a better place to live and do business,” said MDI chairman Azad Moopen.

The engineering wing attached to Kozhikode corporation has commenced detailed study to collect data pertaining to various selection criteria set up by Union government to include the local self government bodies under its smart city project. The engineering wing will table the report in the council meeting to be held this month to take a decision to achieve the benchmark fixed for the smart city project selection.

The engineering wing has started preparing project pertaining to existing status of solid waste management, sanitation, toilet facility, environment aspects, e-governance implementation, electricity and drinking water availability. Urban affairs department which made announcement about the possible inclusion of seven local bodies in the state,comprising Thrissur, Kochi, Kollam, Kozhikode, Thiruvananthapuram, Malappuram and Kannur including the corporation here, had already held discussions with the local bodies to begin process relatded to it.

The total project cost has been pegged at ₹526.61 crore

Kavaratti, the administrative capital of the Lakshadweep group of islands, is set for a major transformation in infrastructure and services that is expected to make it a more liveable city for the residents and tourists.

The island with a population of 11,221, is gearing up to implement a slew of projects under the Smart City Mission.

Smart road project, as part of the Smart city scheme, will be first implemented at Chalai and Manaveeyam.

Smart city Thiruvananthapuram limited (SCTL) recently held a meeting with road owners and utility providers to reach consensus on the arrangement of water lines, sewer lines, storm water drains, electric lines (HT and LT) and optical fibre cables (OFC). The plan is to convert all roads under area-based development (ABD) into smart roads. SCTL has identified 72.5km roads covering nine wards in ABD area.

The ambitious mission requires large-scale capacity building of civic officials

With an outlay of Rs 50,000 crore for the 100 Smart Cities initiative and Rs 48,000 crore for 500 cities under the Atal Mission For Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), the government is targeting to address the growing challenges of rapid urbanisation in a sustainable manner. AMRUT aims to provide in cities basic services and amenities relating to water supply, sewerage, septage management, storm water drains, transport and development of green spaces and parks with special provision for meeting the needs of children. The implementation of this scheme will be linked to urban reforms like e-governance, development of management systems and constitution of professional municipal cadre.

India’s ambitious Smart Cities Mission will earmark an investment of $15 billion (close to Rs 99,457 crore). It involves making nearly 100 cities “smart”, and the “rejuvenation” of 500 more. It is not a small project.

The Centre has seemingly given the project top priority (the deadline for nominating cities for this project with clear guidelines for implementation was December 15) and has envisaged sweeping changes in 11 infrastructure elements of urban life: water and power supply, sanitation, public transport, housing, IT connectivity and digitisation, good governance, sustainable environment, citizens’ safety, health, and education.

The Uttar Pradesh capital is followed by Warangal (Telangana), Dharmshala (Himachal Pradesh), Chandigarh, Raipur (Chhattisgarh), New Town Kolkata (West Bengal), Bhagalpur (Bihar), Panaji (Goa), Port Blair (Andaman and Nicobar Islands), Imphal (Manipur), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Agartala (Tripura) and Faridabad (Haryana).

Lucknow tops fast track smart cities competition beats 12 rivals Lucknow has topped the list of Fast Track Smart Cities Competition. The 13 winners were announced by Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday.

At 7:30 am on Saturday, leader of opposition Ajay Singh received a call from Rewa that his maternal uncle Surendra Pratap Singh had passed away. “I have two Mamas (maternal uncles),” Ajay Singh told TOI. “The elder one lives in the US and the younger Mama passed away this morning. After I finish campaigning today, I will leave for Rewa and return by early morning for tomorrow’s campaign. There is no time. I have to finish campaigning for all 29 seats. The 30th seat is my own constituency and I will have to spend the last few days there.”

Wasting no time, he stepped out of the house to campaign for the party. By 2:00 pm, he had address four public meetings in Umaria and Shahdol. At 2:30 pm, his chopper landed in Singhpur, part of Raigaon assembly seat, which the Congress has not won since 1990. “No garlands, ask the candidate to address the gathering,” he directed district Congress leaders.

A twelve member delegation under the leadership of The Mayor of the Lubin city in Belgium, Mohammed Radiony is on a study tour of Gwalior to explore further collaboration in various Smart City Projects.

Lubin and Gwalior have been working together on various Smart City Projects under the aegis of the International Urban Cooperation.