The Raipur Municipal Corporation (RMC) is seeking Smart City development ideas online to implement the best suggestions made by the people of the city.
The civic body has started inviting suggestions from the citizens to post their aspirations on how their city should emerge as a ‘Smart City’.
An appeal made by the RMC to the citizens titled ‘Vision for Raipur Smart City’ read like this on its website: The Raipur Municipal Corporation (RMC) is pleased to inform you that our City has been selected through a competitive process for Smart City Mission under the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD). In the next phase, our city has to compete with others to make it to the top 20 to be taken up for first round of funding for year 2015-16.
Raipur is now required to formulate a vision, mission and a proposal in consultation with its citizens and other stakeholders. Your City needs you!! So, RMC urges the citizens of Raipur to share their opinions and ideas to make your city “Raipur- a Credible Smart City”. Your views are valuable and can make a difference to your city!!
Kindly post your views till November 30, 2015, it stated in its website. Meanwhile, quick selection of consultants through tendering by the Mission cities has been enabled by the Union Ministry of Urban Development drawing up a panel of consultants for each region.
Incidentally, the All India Institute of local Self-Government (Mumbai) will act as consultant firm for preparation of Smart City Action Plans for Raipur city in Chhattisgarh, officials stated.
Notably, ahead of the two day Smart City Ideas Camp beginning in New Delhi on Tuesday, a total of 88 cities included in the Smart City Mission have identified consulting firms for preparation of city-wise Smart City Action Plans. The remaining 10 cities in North-Eastern states and Union Territories will do so by this week end. Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir are still to nominate one city each for smart city development.
CRISIl Risk and Infrastructure Solutions limited in association with Pri Move Infrastructure Development Consultants Private ltd and Probity Soft Private limited has bagged the contract for 6 cities followed by Jones lang la Salle Property Consultants India Pvt ltd in association with Townland Consultants Pvt ltd and Tata Consulting Engineers, ICRA Management Consulting Private limited in association with NJS Engineers India Private limited and All India Institute of local Self-Government for 5 cities each.
Foreign companies or their Indian associates are associated with the preparation of smart city plans for most of the cities. The selected consulting firms will prepare smart city proposals under the supervision of urban local bodies and state governments based on review of previous plans and interventions undertaken. Smart City Plans shall contain area development action plans and financing plan for the complete life cycle of the proposal.
All city-wise Smart City Plans will be evaluated in second stage of City Challenge competition for identifying the top ranking 20 cities for financing during the current financial year.
It may also be recalled that Raipur and Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh which have been included among 100 other cities in the country for ‘Smart Cities’ Mission would 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.
Notably , the the Centre has 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 solar cities 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’. Under the programme, during 2013-14, a total of 46 cities were sanctioned of which Master Plan of 39 cities were finalised.
The pilot project on the Grid Interactive rooftop small SPV power plant project was successfully implemented in ‘Chandigarh Model Solar City.’ This has demonstrated the feasibility of small grid connected SPV Rooftop in the country, it stated. So far ( 2013-14), cumulative 6.25 MW have been sanctioned/approved under the ‘Solar City Programme’ (1.74 MW) and rooftop programme ( 4.51 MW) including 3.21 MWp in the year 2013-14 for Chandigarh city, the report stated.