Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik inaugurated six smart parks at Sahid Nagar, whose foundation stones were laid a year ago, here Monday.
The Chief Minister also inaugurated a slew of services in the Capital city including a city-wide solar powered adaptive traffic signal system.
The citizen-friendly parks with state-of-the-art facilities for a relaxing time would remain open from 5 am to 10 am, and 4 pm to 9 pm, providing recreational space both for children and adults.
The parks have been designed as interactive play spaces for children and four of the six were taken up for re-development as a single play-cum-activity space. The four parks have four theme zones namely Get Creative, Get Rest, Get Smart and Get Wet.
BMC Commissioner, BDA Vice-Chairman and Bhubaneswar Smart City SPV MD Krishan Kumar dedicated the parks to the residents of the area.
The BDA-OMC Park has also been re-developed based on Get Fit theme. The redesigned park will have safe spaces for toddlers with facilities like rubber flooring, natural mounds, fitness zones, and health pockets for health check-up.
The parks are also equipped with WiFi connection, which is a first in the state. Jungle gyms, basketball courts, and an open air gallery with eye-catching wall graffiti amid lush green lawns are few of the attractions in these parks.
Talking to the media, Bhubaneswar Smart City SPV CEO Vineel Krishna said, “We hope that the new concepts based on which these smart parks have been designed, help us in getting more visibility for our future smart city projects.”
The adaptive traffic signal system is set up at a cost of `14.69 crore, including maintenance cost for seven years.
It may be mentioned here that the 50 traffic junctions and five Pelican (pedestrian light controlled crossing) junctions in the city have been included in the project.
The Bhubaneswar Operations Centre (BOC), which was also inaugurated by the Chief Minister Monday, will act as receivers of camera-based sensors installed in every junction.
“Under conventional control the traffic signal operates on a fixed time but the new system adapts with the traffic density; it takes less time and displays green signal where necessary,” said Vinod Puranik, Director of Envoys Electronics Pvt Ltd, the organisation which has bagged the project.
He further informed that audio alarm and blinkers (walk signals) have been installed at the Pelican junctions so that pedestrians can cross the road safely.
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