Kohima gears up to become a Smart City

Our Correspondent KOHIMA, SEPTEMBER 9 With Kohima being selected as one of the 98 cities across the country designated to become a Smart City under the Smart City Mission which was launched recently by the Prime Minister of India, the Municipal Affairs and the Kohima Municipal Council (KMC) authorities are gearing up to implement the Smart City Plan for the capital town. Interacting with media persons at the KMC office on Wednesday, Secretary for the department of Municipal Affairs, Dr. Maongwati Aier highlighted the plans that are in the pipeline to make Kohima a Smart City in the near future. He talked about the importance of urbanization and with the urban cities contributing 61% of the GDP to the country, the Central government is looking to increase it to 75% in the next 5-10 years. Towards this, he said the Smart Cities Mission was conceptualized to boost the growth of urbanization. “We are fortunate that Kohima has been included as one of the proposed Smart Cities among 97 other cities across the country,” Aier said. He said there are three main strategic components for area-based development in the Smart Cities Mission which include city improvement (Retrofitting) where an area consisting of at least 250 acres will be identified by the city in consultation with citizens for improvising of existing structures, city renewal (Redevelopment) which envisages an area of more than 25 acres to be completely restructured and redeveloped, and city extension (Greenfield Development) which will require identifying of 125 acres of previously vacant area and develop it into a new expansion of the city with most of the smart solutions applied to it. “The basic aim is the people’s participation. All the people in the 19 wards will have to participate for the project to be successful,” Aier stated. More on page 5 Shedding light to the aspects of the Smart City plan for Kohima, he said e-governance tops the list with a stress on IT connectivity and digitization. As Smart Cities Mission envisages that computerized grievances redressal system should be on board the Urban Local Bodies (ULB), he stated, is already in place in the KMC, while another norm that is in the process is the computerized citizens’ facilitation centre. The authorities are also planning on setting up of a computerized technology for monitoring encroachment, which would detect illegal encroachment and illegal disposal of wastes and debris, by setting up CCTVs in at least about 100 points in the town initially, and of video crime monitoring CCTVs with sensors are also in the pipeline. In the long run, Aier said, KMC will become an e-office with a full fledged e-public delivery system and will have a computerised marketing system, online payment system for trade licences and other fees etc. The official also stated that tackling the perennial water problem in Kohima will be worked out under the Smart City project and automatic meter reading, smart billing and online water quality monitoring systems are being planned. Efficient rain water harvesting systems are being proposed to be set up in all the 19 wards of the town while a 100% recycling of waste water is also in the plan, he said. On power supply, he informed that a single window system for power connections is under process to do away with loopholes and usage of remote metering and a smart billing system are also intended. On sanitation and solid waste management, he said Kohima generates tonnes and tonnes of wastes daily and in order to manage this, the authorities intend to introduce provision to turn the wastes into energy and fuel while some of them will be recycled for reuse or turned into compost. Another component of the Kohima plan, Aier pointed out, is the urban mobility and transport system wherein all the colonies will have bus service connectivity, pedestrian infrastructure, smart parking, intelligent traffic management etc. Stating that a scheme called affordable housing for low income groups of people also comes under the Smart City project, he informed that 3341 affordable housing have been identified to be constructed in Kohima. Citing that public safety is an important concern for Smart Cities, the official stated that maximum importance on the safety of the women and children are being contemplated while a disaster management cell will be set up in the KMC and a toll-free number will be activated to receive various kinds of grievances for redressal. More on page 5 In order to make Kohima city a sustainable environment, he said green space provisions will be marked, plantation of trees will be undertaken, rain water harvesting/solar energy will be emphasized to a great extent, recycling of sewage water, energy efficient street lighting system and air quality monitoring system are all in the pipeline. On health and education, he said, “We intend to have more health infrastructures as well as more education infrastructures like hospitals, schools and colleges etc, equipped with broadband and wifi connectivity.” Meanwhile, towards promotion and preservation of culture, it is intended that each ward will have a community centre, an exhibition centre, open air theatre and urban haats. The implementation of the Mission at the City level will be done by a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) created for the purpose. The SPV will plan, appraise, approve, release funds, implement, manage, operate, monitor and evaluate the Smart City development projects. The Smart City Mission will be operated as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) and the Central Government proposes to give financial support on an average Rs. 100 crore to each city per year while a matching grant has to be organized by the state government/ULBs. The Central government is said to have empanelled 7 consulting firms for the Smart Cities Mission and the state capital is expecting of those firms for preparation of DPR. On the other hand, it was learnt that the Asian Development Bank has agreed to provide technical assistance for the project to take off in Kohima. Initially, only 20 cities will be selected to execute the project while the rest will have to redraw their plans and DPRs. Will Kohima make it in the top 20 list? The citizens will have to wait with bated breath till December when the final announcement of the first batch of potential Smart Cities will be announced.