Coming up: Smart City plan in 100 days

IN THE PIPELINE Officials propose construction of flyovers, underpasses to decongest traffic, increased CCTV coverage and LED lights at busy crossings

Following the state capital’s inclusion in the union government’s Smart City project, the district authorities have started preparations to come up with a detailed development plan for the city. And consultancy firm Data World Private Limited has been selected to prepare the action plan for Lucknow.

A decision to this effect was taken during a meeting among officials of the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC), Lucknow Development Authority (LDA), Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration (LESA), traffic police department, and Jal Nigam on Tuesday. The selected consulting firm will prepare smart city proposals under the supervision of urban local bodies within 100 days.

A host of other decisions related to the proposal were taken at the meeting that was attended by Data World director Akshat Jain, senior urban planner at Data World Dinesh Ahlawat, Ashish Srivastava of ANB consultancy, Sachin Pant, CEO Innovest Advisory Services Pvt Ltd, DN Yadav, project manager at Jal Nigam, along with additional municipal commissioner PK Srivastava, chief LMC engineer SK Ambedkar, and chief LDA architect Ja Rao Reddy.

Talking to HT, PK Srivastava said officials discussed the components of a Smart City and planned ways to decongest busy crossings of the state capital by construction of under passes and flyovers, illumination of all major crossings through solar lights and LED bulbs and traffic management. He, however, said the finer points of the decisions, such as the exact locations and budgets of the flyover, lights and underpasses would be covered in the Smart City proposal.

Besides, expansion of the government’s Electronic Service Delivery or e-services project and video crime monitoring would also be an important feature of the Smart City. A mobile app would also be developed to help citizens report anti-social activities, crimes and even traffic jams to the police control room. Coverage by close circuit television (CCTV) cameras would also be extended to connect all sensitive locations of the city with the control room.

The ADM said the public information and grievance redressal system in the city would be strengthened to help officials sort out civic problems within a few hours of a complaint and public transport system would be made efficient under the Urban Mobility plan. He said it was proposed to fit all public buses with GPRS / GPS devices for better monitoring and increased convenience of passengers.

Similarly, three-wheelers including, autos, e-rickshaws and tempos would be fitted with GPS and made to ply on pre-determined routes to decongest traffic.