Itanagar, Jan 13 (PTI) Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Friday said smart cities should capture the imagination of people and focus on ‘feel-good-inducing’ interventions.
The Union Law and Justice Minister said this while reviewing the progress of Smart City Projects in Itanagar and Pasighat in East Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh through a virtual meeting.
“A smart city must be smart in all sense. Having smart infrastructure is not enough, we need to onboard people to make them think and behave smartly,” he said.
“We should sensitize citizen to become responsible to their city,” Rijiju said, adding that impetus should be given to smart policing, tourist-centric projects and aesthetics of the city.
While expressing his satisfaction over the progress of the projects in both the cities of the northeastern state on war-footing in the mission’s penultimate year, the Union minister called for completion of the projects as per the stipulated timeline.
“The Smart City Mission was launched with great fanfare in 2015. People had high expectations about the outcome. Therefore, it is necessary that the projects are evaluated and completed as per the stipulated timeline,” he said.
Rijiju suggested that Smart City Mission could be converged with other government resources, architects, city planners and designers to make Itanagar and Pasighat dream tourist destinations while offering any kind of his intervention at the Centre’s level for smooth implementation and timely delivery of the projects.
Earlier, during his opening remark, state Urban Development, Town Planning and Urban Local Bodies Commissioner Neeraj Semwal highlighted the smart city projects being undertaken in two cities.
He informed that Pasighat Smart City is implementing 43 projects for Rs 511.5 crore, of which 12 projects have been completed and rest progressing at various stages.
He added that in Itanagar, some 32 projects are being implemented worth Rs 559.15 crore, of which 6 are completed and rest in various stages of completion.
The chief executive officers of Smart City Pasighat and Itanagar made detail presentation on the physical and financial progress of their respective city.
Some of the major on-going projects of Pasighat Smart City are market area up-gradation, smart roads, storm water drains, sewage treatment plant, solid waste management, river front development, and heritage redevelopment.
For Itanagar, multipurpose vendor market, automated car parking facilities, eco-tourism park, Yagamso River cleaning, bioremediation of legacy waste, redevelopment of Ganga Market, pedestrian sidewalks, CC roads, stormwater drains, artisan-cum-handicraft exhibition centre and redevelopment of IG Park are some of the notable projects under the Smart City Mission. PTI UPL RG
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