Naya Raipur-Chhattisgarh’s hi-tech State Capital is gearing up for the third round of ‘Smart City Challenge’ contest of the Union Ministry of Urban Development.
The Naya Raipur Development Authority (NRDA) has been collecting feedback from citizens on how they dream of seeing Chhattisgarh’s new State capital as a “Smart City”.
Notably, Naya Raipur being first planned city of 21st century already has state-of-the-art infrastructure at its disposal. The city has well planned economic and social infrastructure, officials informed.
The village development plan was also taking care of social equity and cohesion. The rich culture and heritage all adds to the strength of the city, they said.
It might be recalled that a ‘Master System Integrator’ will manage the extraordinary high-technology oriented ‘Naya Raipur Smart City System’.
The Naya Raipur Smart City System will comprise smart governance, city surveillance, intelligent transport management system, electricity and water supply and city command and control centre among others, officials said.
Notably, the Naya Raipur as a Smart City will leverage the collective intelligence created by connecting physical, institutional, social and economic infrastructure to deliver a quantum improvement in the quality of life of local population, they added.
Also, the new capital is a ‘green field’ city and is planned to gradually develop its infrastructure in order to provide world class amenities and facilities to its residents and visitors.
NRDA has taken the next step in Smart City development with plans for Information & Communication Technology (ICT) enablement of infrastructure and citizen services, officials informed
Naya Raipur is among five other cities -- Indore (Madhya Pradesh), Mysore (Karnataka), Naya Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad (Maharashtra) -- in the country chosen as a demonstration for the Centre’s ambitious Sustainable Urban Transport Project (SUTP).
Detailed project profiles were prepared by all the cities to be included to SUTP as city demonstration projects, officials said. Plans were to develop a project comprising IT-enabled systems to manage a host of utilities using state-of- the-art technology.
The design would comprise IT enabled land management system, city surveillance besides a host of other systems which were popular and being used only in the developed countries.
The other city management systems include intelligent lighting systems, pay and use parking systems, city guide map available through web browser, intelligent transport system, city level wi-fi touch screens across the city, display boards across the city for providing real-time information, emergency alert and crisis response systems, traffic re-routing applications based on real time traffic data.
The city would also have a Central Control Center for monitoring all the services including central traffic control and management system.
It should be recalled that Naya Raipur has emerged as the largest land bank with a mammoth 237 square kilometres ( 23,700 hectares).
The NRDA has plans of developing a transport hub spread over an area of 161.9 hectares in the new capital city. The hub will include setting up of light Rail Transport System (lRTS) stations. The area being earmarked for the transport hub will be 12.55 per cent of the total area of the new capital city, officials stated.
Five residential sectors having more than 8,000 dwelling units had already been completed in Naya Raipur last year and the habitation in the residential sectors have also commenced, officals said.
It might be recalled that NRDA will also develop a ‘land Management System’ for managing disposal of land for infrastructure development.
Union Minister of Urban Development and Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation M Venkaiah Naidu had clearly said in 2015 that all cities and towns seeking to participate in these schemes will be profiled based on specific parameters that have a bearing on their ability to address governance reforms, resource mobilisation, execution etc. The Minister further said that while addressing the issue of geographical spread, only the deserving will be assisted.
It should be recalled that on January 16, 2015, Naidu while addressing consultative workshop on ‘Urban Governance’ organised for Municipal Commissioners of 130 cities and towns from nine northern states of Delhi, Haryana, Chandigarh, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan in New Delhi informed that his Ministry is currently working on a ‘City Challenge’ framework with the objective of selecting right city candidates for participation in schemes like building 100 smart cities and development of 500 cities and towns.
“It would not be business as usual in the matter of financing of cities and towns under new urban initiatives and instead, it would be based on the ability of urban local bodies to reform urban governance and rise to the new challenges,” he said.
Naidu referred to the present appalling state of affairs in urban areas which is marked by weak urban governance structures, uninspiring leadership at the level of both selected and elected urban managers, poor inventory management and resource base, weak urban planning and execution, urban mobility being a nightmarish experience, housing shortage, inadequate water and power supply and despicable management of solid waste and treatment of sewerage etc.
In terms of service parameters, Naidu noted that only 73 litres of water per capita per day is being supplied as against the norm of 135 litres, only 50 per cent of households having water connection, 40 per cent households with toilet facilities, treatment of only 16 per cent of sewerage, collection and disposal of only 23 per cent of solid waste and recycling only 10 per cent of city waste.
Referring to the investment needs for urban initiatives, the Minister said that about Rs40 lakh crore is required for provision of basic infrastructure besides another Rs20 lakh crore for operation and maintenance of urban utilities over the next 20 years, another Rs15 lakh crore for meeting housing shortage besides
Rs60,009 crore for sanitation. The total investment comes to about US $ 1200 billion, most of which has to come from private sources.
He pointed out that the private investment flow would be dependent on the confidence of investors in urban local bodies.
However, Naya Raipur is not just fast emerging as the hi-tech State capital but also an adventure sports destination. The four kms cycling track, kayaking, burma bridge and a 2 kms skating track are some of the facilities already functional in the new capital city, officials said and added that boating facility had been made available to visitors at the Jungle Safari from January 1 this year. The jungle safari comprises of herbivore safari, bear safari, tiger and lion safari. Around 166 personnel including officials, doctors, zoo-keeper, guard and staff are deployed for taking care of animals.
Notably the Chhattisgarh government has also earmarked 258.48 hectares of land in the capital for setting up a nature resort and a theme park in future, officials said.
On the other hand, a theme residential township — the first of its kind in Central India — would have people living in sort of a ‘getaway’ location surrounded by natural surroundings it.
The State government recently informed that the ‘Purkhauti Muktangan’ had also been developed with the vision to promote culture, tradition, and archeology. Traditional sculptors of Chhattisgarh have given it the shape of cultural heritage. Spread over 200 acres of land, ‘Purkhauti Muktangan’ is situated nearly 20 km away from village Uparwara, officials informed. Soon rock garden and aquarium will also be developed at the Purkhauti Muktangan premises which will further enhance its significance, they added.