States get one more week to submit smart city proposals

Smart_City_LogoOn the request of states, the Government of India has extended the smart city proposal submission deadline by a week to April 21. All the 23 cities in the run for smart city project were notified about the news.

“The extension in deadline is because few other participating states requested the central government more time for completing the smart city proposal,” said an official in Dehradun.

Earlier, the Dehradun Nagar Nigam had given its nod to the final draft of the smart city proposal for the city a couple of days ago. The previous date for presenting the smart city proposal to the Ministry of Urban Development was April 15.

 “In this extra one week before submission of the proposal, we will only fine tune the presentation part and not change the basic context of the proposal,” Meenakshi Sundaram, Nodal Officer for Smart City Proposal, said. The extension in deadline was also due to the number of holidays in this week, she added.

Zone 4 in the city has been selected for retrofitting which includes areas like Chakrota road, Clock Tower area, Saharanpur road, Yamuna Colony, Mohit Nagar, as well as other areas like Gandhi Park, Parade Ground and few core locations in the city which have been added after recommendation by Nagar Nigam. Retrofitting under zone 4 will include construction of footpaths, repair of roads, installation of underground dustbins, electric buses for transport, intelligent poles, bicycle tracks, public bio-digesters and focus on maintaining the greenery of the city. MDDA had carried out various workshops, citizens’ consultation and online polling for selecting zone 4.

“We are all set with the proposal and have no issues presenting it even if the date had not been changed. However, these last few days will give us time to review the entire project thoroughly and revision will help to find out the smaller issues as well as rectifying them.”P C Dumka, Secretary, MDDA said.

A meeting will be held on April 16 by the Interdepartmental Committee to discuss the proposal. It will constitute the representatives from MDDA, PWD, Jal Sansthan, Jal Nigam, Nagar Nigam and other stakeholders.
Later, the State High Power Committee will meet on April 19 to analyze the smart city proposal in detail. The approval of this committee is a must for the proposal to be presented  to the Central Government.