Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Oct 29: Chief Secretary GC Pati Wednesday emphasised the need for smart governance, improved living standards and better opportunities for citizens under the Smart City mission while speaking at the stakeholders’ round-table meet on ‘Governance in smart cities’ held here.
The event was organised by Department of Information Technology and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) to discuss the use of IT solutions and smart technology to better amenities and services for citizens.
Pati said the growth rate of population in Bhubaneswar has stood at 3 per cent between 2001 and 2011 compared to 1.5 per cent for the entire state. The city would witness a population surge in the coming years and should be prepared to face issues such as providing adequate housing, sanitation, hygiene, health-care, quick transport and uninterrupted power supply to all. Pati said information technology (IT) would be adopted to face these emerging challenges.
Electronics and IT, principal secretary PK Jena said Bhubaneswar has entered the final round of the Smart City bid to select the top-20 cities and hoped it would play a role in smart city governance. Housing & Urban Development secretary G Mathivathanan said governance in smart city has to focus on finding smart solutions to resolve the problems raised by rapid urbanization and transportation.
CISCO managing director Aamer Azeemi and International Finance Corporation (IFC) principal operation officer Navneet Chadha suggested how Bhubaneswar could learn from the experience of global smart cities such as Barcelona in Spain, which improved infrastructure and citizen’s quality of life in a short span of time.
