GUWAHATI, Dec 21 - The State government has submitted the city-level Smart City Proposal for Guwahati to the Union Ministry of Urban Development with special emphasis to deal with problems like flash flood and traffic congestion, besides focusing on the use of IT and development of waterways.
Sources said that a meeting of the State Level High Powered Steering Committee on Smart City Mission, Guwahati, was held earlier this month in the presence of Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi at his official residence, where the consultant WAPCOS Ltd � a Government of India undertaking � along with OASIS Inc, engaged for the purpose of preparing the Smart City proposal for Guwahati, presented the draft Smart City proposal.
The components of the area-based proposal for the Smart City Place, which proposes to use place making as the tool to make Guwahati a resilient city with development of the existing waterways and water bodies to augment steps to mitigate the flash flood problem of the city, creation of green-way corridor, development of the Brahmaputra riverfront, among other things, were presented at the meeting, sources said.
The components of the Plan City Proposal for application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) towards improvement of the public transport system for easing the traffic congestion problem of Guwahati was also presented as part of the Smart City Proposal.
Chief Minister Gogoi gave his in-principle approval to the draft Smart City Proposal and directed the officials to take up the issue of funding pattern of 90:10 (with 10 per cent State share) instead of the 50:50 funding pattern of the Union Ministry for Urban Development, sources said.
The Chief Minister also asked the officials to give special attention to the riverfront development of the Brahmaputra, along with other waterways of the city while implementing the Smart City Plan.
Later, the final Smart City Plan was further taken up for discussion at another meeting of the High Powered Steering Committee held at the State Secretariat under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary VK Pipersenia.
The SLHPC approved the Smart City Proposal for Guwahati and directed the Guwahati Development Department to submit the same to the Union Ministry for Urban Development for participation in the �City Challenge� of second round of the Smart City Mission, sources said.The plan was submitted before completion of the December 15 deadline set by the Centre.
As per the route map laid down by the Centre, in the next step a total of 20 cities will be picked up as the first batch for financing of the Smart City project through evaluation in the second round of �City Challenge� competition by the third week of January.
