Bhubaneswarites seek better urban mobility

homeThe residents of Bhubaneswar have raised a demand to the city’s municipal corporation of improving urban mobility system under the Centre’s Smart City project.

The suggestions and demands were made on the heels of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) ‘Citizen Connect Initiative’ which was recently unveiled to invite people’s suggestions on the civic services under the Smart City project. As part of the initiative, the BMC had urged the Bhubaneswarites to register their votes either offline or online.

After the final round of vote counting, urban mobility has topped the list followed by drinking water and waste management that people want the civic body to develop.

In order to receive residents’ ideas, the corporation has also incorporated Bhubaneswar Idea Box section on its Smart City website people can drop their ideas online. The best idea will bag a prize.

Interestingly, BMC has also mooted an idea of developing a signage of maintaining the streets, which would be installed across the city to sensitise people on upkeeping cleanliness. For this, a signage design competition would be organised by the BMC.

Under the smart district category, the Bhubaneswar Town Centre has topped the chart. However, the other three options – Infocity, South City and Heritage district – will also be equally evaluated and developed.

A BMC official said the civic body is working on to strengthen public transport system, traffic and parking and improve footpath, and cycle paths for the citizens.

That apart, BMC has also kicked off a work of collecting ideas from the residents, which will be incorporated in the proposal to be sent to the Centre. Citizens’ ideas may help Bhubaneswar get a place in the list of first 20 cities that would get whopping funds from the Centre under the the Smart City project. Sources said the Centre will provide Rs 500 crore in phases to a city. The state government will provide a matching grant to the city and the rest will be generated by the civic body.

Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said that BMC understands the importance of citizens’ suggestions to help improving the civic amenities and make Bhubaneswar a livable city.