Rourkela: Rourkela Smart City has secured its position in top 11 award-winning cities in EatSmart Cities Challenge conducted by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), a report said.
The steel city has bagged the award as it is establishing an economic approach to food system transformation. The city is supporting solar-powered cold storage and women entrepreneurship to reduce waste. They aim to empower small farmers and street vendors.
The winning cities will be awarded Rs 50 lakh each from MoHUA and engaged in implementation of Eat Right India initiatives for over a period of 12 months to scale up their plan. The ministry announced the name of the winners in the presence of MoHUA secretary Manoj Joshi.
Other winners are: Chandigarh, Indore, Jammu, Jabalpur, Panaji, Rajkot, Sagar, Surat, Tumakuru and Ujjain. The 11 cities will now enter the deep engagement stage of the challenge wherein projects undertaken in pilot stage will be scaled up in a sustainable manner.
The EatSmart Cities Challenge was launched by Smart Cities Mission being undertaken by MoHUA in collaboration with the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to enhance the health & wellbeing of the citizens and integrate sustainable food safety & nutrition systems within the smart city design, April 15, 2021.
The challenge is aimed at motivating cities to develop a plan that would support a healthy, safe and sustainable food environment strengthened by institutional, physical, social and economic infrastructure along with the application of ‘smart’ solutions to combat food related issues.
Rourkela has worked extensively in various thematic areas related to food including; reshaping market for farmers resorting to distress sales, food for all, community participation in program planning related to Food interventions, redeveloping city food infrastructure, food & nutrition for early childhood development, Purnanjali Program and others. All these programs were appreciated at the ministry level.
