The ‘Raipur Smart City Plan’ has the component of visual mapping of the city for ease of travel across the city, officials said.
The other key features of the plans would be CCTV surveillance, Pedestrian only streets, 100 per cent door to door collection, removing street parking among others.
There are also plans to make Raipur a ‘Visually Aesthetic City’ which would comprise street art, neighbourhood art and rejuvenating dead walls.
The plan also has the component of e-Rickshaw zones.
Notably, Raipur city has improved the quality of ‘smart city’ plans by 25 per cent to finally find its place in the list of 13 cities chosen by the Central Government for development as a ‘smart city’.
Notably, the Chhattisgarh government has approved Rs 13 crore for 89 developmental works to be undertaken by Raipur Municipal Corporation (RMC).
Notably, a sum of Rs 10 crore has been approved by the State Government for various wards of RMC including drain construction, road widening, electrification and pipeline extension, according to an official press release .
Besides these, around Rs 2.50 crore has been approved for setting up a world class gym in the vacant space at International Swimming Pool at GE road besides other facilities.
Notably, last month, the Central Government had released the first installment of Rs 55.29 crore out of the approved Rs 573.40 crore for State Annual Action Plan (SAAP) under AMRUT project for the current financial year in Chhattisgarh.
The Union Ministry of Urban Development has already released Central Assistance of Rs 1,062.27 crore to 13 States as first installment under AMRUT project for the current financial year, officials stated.
This is a part of total Central Assistance of Rs 5,311.38 crore committed to 13 States for which the Ministry has approved Atal Mission Action Plans for 2015-16 entailing total investment of Rs 11,671.76 crore in 286 cities in these states.
The Ministry has so far cleared a total of 939 projects for 286 cities with most of them related to water supply and sewerage network services.
Chhattisgarh will witness total convergence of three major and highly ambitious Centrally-sponsored urban development schemes in the days ahead.
As per a detailed note issued by the Union Urban Development Ministry, out of the 9 states under consideration, there is total convergence of housing, AMRUT and Smart City Missions in respect of Chhattisgarh (2 smart and 9 Amrut cities), Jammu & Kashmir (1 and 3), Kerala (1 and 7), MP (7 and 32), Odisha (2 and 9), Rajasthan (4 and 28), Telangana (2 and 11).
The Urban Administration and Development Minister Amar Agrawal in July last year had stated that the State Government has decided to develop all the other 11 municipal Corporations-run cities on the pattern of ‘Smart Cities’.
The infrastructure will be upgraded, convenient transport will be provided, people’s participation, good governance, health and education, e-Governance, healthy environment, adequate drinking water facilities, waste disposal management and sanitation and low-cost housing for poor are some of the proposals to develop the other ‘Smart Cities’, he said.
The Centre had launched ‘Amrut Mission’ in 500 towns whose population is above one lakh. The Mission will benefit Chhattisgarh also, Agrawal said.
Notably, Chhattisgarh is among other states in the country which had been asked by Union Ministry of Urban Development to take immediate and necessary action to convert its 14 ‘Census Towns’ into ‘Statutory Urban local Bodies’ to promote planned urban development.
Rajiv Gauba, Union Secretary (Urban Development) in a letter to the Chief Secretaries of all States has highlighted the need for statutory Urban local Bodies for planned and coordinated infrastructure development, enhancement of revenues and efficient delivery of services to citizens leading to overall growth of economic activities, officials informed.
He stressed that “The opportunity of planned urban development might get lost if unplanned construction and ad-hoc provisioning of infrastructure is allowed to take place over a long time”.