Close on the heels of smart cities, as many as 30 villages in the Lucknow division will be developed as ‘smart’ under the Smart Gram initiative. Divisional Commissioner Anil Garg recently held a meeting with the Gram Pradhans of these villages and discussed the development plans at length.
The objective of developing smart villages is to ensure basic infrastructure comprising smart information and communication to improve governance and access to better services, livelihood and economic operations to the last mile.
Divisional Commissioner Anil Garg said, “In a bid to ensure all-round development of the villages, we will provide clean drinking water, roads, sewerage system, CCTV surveillance, Wi-Fi facility, GIS mapping, e-library, sports ground, online grievance redressal system, street lights and health facilities in smart villages.”
Falling in the vicinity of Lucknow division, five villages from each district – Lucknow, Unnao, Khiri, Rae Bareli, Sitapur and Hardoi – have been chosen to be developed as smart village.
“The development works in the identified villages will be carried out on convergence model. Therefore, financial assistance for few projects will be provided by the State Government however expenses for rest of the works will be borne by the respective Gram Panchayat on their own,” added Garg.
To give a smart look to the villages, the Government will provide basic amenities like RO plant in Panchayat Bhawan buildings, installation of LEDs, opening of Skill Development Centres, clean drinking water supply, tree plantation on both sides of the roads, maintenance and boundary wall construction around Panchayat Bhawan buildings, advanced drainage and sewerage system, wall paintings of the government schemes, opening of Anganwadi Centres, Community halls, beautification of parks and ponds, construction of graveyards, plantation of medicinal plants and tree guards and telemedicine facility will be made available in each village.
Meanwhile, the Gram Panchayats will have to bear the expenses of smart solutions like CCTV surveillance, Wi-Fi facility, GIS mapping and online grievance redressal system.
At present, Hasuri Ausanpur village of Siddharth Nagar district is the smart village. Dilip Tripathi, Gram Pradhan of the village informed, “We have implemented Public Address System in our village, which enables us to pass on important information and announcements at the doorstep of every resident. It is also embedded with their mobile phones. Besides, the entire village is connected through WiFi. And the geographical information of village is very well mapped in the website.”
