The Bilaspur Municipal Corporation (BMC) will soon take up an ‘Integrated Solid Waste Management’ project in the city under Public Private Partnership (PPP) model.
The project would be taken up on Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer basis, officials stated.
Notably, Raipur and Bilaspur cities in Chhattisgarh which have been included among 100 other cities in the country for ‘Smart Cities’ Mission would also be developed as ‘green cities’.
The Union Ministry of Urban Development will be utilising the services of the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), a unit of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to develop energy efficient cities, officials stated.
The State Urban Development Agency (SUDA) in Chhattisgarh is taking up project development under Centre’s ‘Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation’ (AMRUT) project.
A total of nine cities selected under AMRUT are set to receive a major infrastructural facelift in Chhattisgarh.
The cities chosen under the AMRUT Mission are-Raipur, Durg, Bhilai, Rajnandgaon, Bilaspur, Korba, Raigarh, Ambikapur and Jagdalpur.
Notably, the first high-level meeting of the management committee formed under AMRUT Mission chaired by Chief Secretary Vivek Dhand was held in Naya Raipur recently to discuss ways to develop infrastructure and bring about improvement in citizen services in various cities of Chhattisgarh.
AMRUT Mission Director Dr Rohit Yadav had informed in the meeting that elaborate action plan would also be prepared for improvement of drinking water supply, sewerage and drainage lines in the selected cities under the Mission.
He had informed that the cities would be provided better public transport, parking facilities and new centres would be established for recreation and development of new parks and green zones would be taken up.
Yadav had stated that the Chhattisgarh government would receive `290.25 crore for implementation of the AMRUT Mission.
He had stated that the State government and civic bodies would also contribute necessary finances for the transformation of cities.
For development of Raipur city, one third funding for the implementation of AMRUT Mission would be received from the Centre while two thirds of the funding would be made by the State government and the civic bodies.
In rest of the eight cities, the Centre would provide 50 per cent funding while the rest of the funds would be made available together by the State government and the civic bodies, he said.
Notably , the Centre has also approved Raipur and Bilaspur to be developed as ‘Solar cities’ in Chhattisgarh.
So far, 55 existing cities in 27 States/UTs are being developed as solarcities in the country under ‘Development of Solar Cities Programme’, senior government officials stated.
In fact, Raipur city was the only city among nine other cities in the country which was chosen by the Centre among the ‘Pilot Solar Cities’ for implementation of its ambitious ‘Development of Solar Cities Programme’ in 2013-14,as per the 2013-14 annual report of the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy for 2013-14.
The other eight cities chosen for ‘Pilot Solar Cities’ programmes were-Rajkot, Faridabad, Shimla, Thane, Shirdi, Aizwal, Amritsar and Agartala.
As per the report, the development of the ‘Solar Cities Programme’ aims at minimum 10 per cent reduction in the projected demand of conventional energy at the end of five years, the report stated.
The aforesaid objectives are to be achieved through a combination of energy efficient measures and enhancing supply from renewable energy sources, it stated.
The Ministry assists the municipal corporations and the urban local bodies in preparation of a Master Plan for increasing energy efficiency and renewable energy supply in the city, setting up institutional arrangements for the implementation of the Master Plan and the awareness generation and capacity building activities. The Centre had set the target of supporting 60 cities/towns for development as ‘solar/green cities’.
Raipur and Bilaspur are among the top 20 mission cities that made good use of website ‘MyGov.in’ for citizen participation in preparation of Smart City plans, officials stated.
The enthusiasm about Smart City Plans under preparation resulted in huge citizen participation with over 15 lakh citizens from urban areas contributing to the same with their views and suggestions using ‘MyGov.in’ across the country.
A total of 15,01,417 citizens posted their comments, views and suggestions besides voting in response to various proposals of cities included in the Smart City Mission till yesterday i.e November 30, 2015. Various cities have solicited citizen participation in the preparation of Smart City Plans since September this year using MyGov.in platform. Citizen participation is given a weightage of 16 per cent in the evaluation of Smart City Plans in the second stage of ‘City Challenge Competition’.
Bhopal topped the list with 1,14,529 citizens responding to various aspects of the Smart City Plan for the city followed by Indore with 1,07,628, Allahabad -1,03,152, Haldia-75,763, Jhansi-61,048, Udaipur-60,129, Aligarh-49,484, Gwalior-47,164, Sharanpur-45,290 and Jabalpur-38,805, making the top 10 cities in respect of citizen participation.