The area covered in the retrofitting proposal for Dehradun smart city will be expanded to include areas excluded earlier, including Gandhi Park, Parade Ground, Pavilion Ground, Secretariat, Municipal Corporation of Dehradun and Doon Hospital, among other localities.

However, the lack of public discipline and disregard for civic sense responsible for encroachment and littering also need to be addressed. For this, the authorities should initially take up one area and completely remove all encroachments without partiality. 

Dehradun Mayor Vinod Chamoli said this while speaking at a workshop on the Dehradun smart city proposal slated to be re-submitted to the Centre. He also said that the MCD board will meet on April 4 specifically for the smart city proposal.

Chamoli said, "The smart city proposal is to go through the MCD but last time we had little time or role in the proposal which had to be passed by the MCD board. The Government of India is clear in its focus on prioritising such projects in which concrete progress can be achieved by the time of 2019 lok Sabha elections.

Focusing the proposal this time on retrofitting, we have decided to leave the greenfield area development planning for the future. The proposal will focus on aspects like efficient solid waste management and intelligent poles among others. Referring to the area marked for the proposal, the Mayor said that important sites including Clock Tower, Gandhi Park, Pavilion Ground and Parade Ground should also be brought under the proposed project area. "The Gandhi Park, Pavilion Ground and Parade Ground are the only remaining open and green public spaces in the heart of the city which are being spoiled by haphazard works like construction of a swimming pool on Pavilion Ground and varied construction decreasing open space on the Parade Ground," he said.

Chamoli further said, "The absence of public discipline in Doon- as in places across India is a major issue with skewed  consideration of law violation as status issue. The shops were demolished and set back to widen the Chakrata Road but the space created is now occupied by vendor carts. In the scenario of such undisciplined society, there is need for taking up one area of the town and effectively removing all types of encroachment from it to send a strong message against encroachment across town."

Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority vice chairman and smart city nodal officer R Meenakshi Sundaram said that limited public consultation was one of the major drawbacks in the previous smart city proposal which was rejected by the Centre.

He said, "Of the 23 cities working on smart city proposals for re-submission, Dehradun elicited maximum public response with more than 28,000 votes being received on the proposal from the public online. We also needed a benchmark city for which we chose the capital of Scotland, Edinburgh which shares similarities with Dehradun in aspects like population, tourist gateway status and presence of educational institutions. We also propose to make at least two bazaars vehicle-free starting with the Paltan Bazaar. In addition to the existing parking facilities near Clock Tower and on Dispensary Road, a large parking facility is also slated to come up in the Tehsil area. We propose to facilitate cycles and golf carts to transport parking users to the Paltan Bazaar with the price of this service also being included in the parking fee."

The proposal for re-submission with April 15 as deadline incorporates various features including introduction of 50 electric buses, phasing out of old public transport buses and 10 sites identified for public bicycle renting facility among others. Intelligent poles are proposed to facilitate multiple uses including sensors for garbage, traffic, mosquitoes and air quality along with CCTV cameras, free WiFi and other utilities.