Amaravati in race for smart city

Amaravati: The new capital Amaravati is in the race for Smart City. The CRDA sent proposals to Smart Cities Mission of the Union urban development department in this regard.

Amaravati was primarily selected in the second phase of Smart City programme. The CRDA sent proposals of City Smart Vision-Targets, Area-Based Proposals and Pan City Solutions. Amaravati city will get Rs 500 crore funds if it is selected for Smart City project. The CRDA is hopeful about selection of Amaravati as Smart City and using the funds of Smart City Mission for its development.

Union minister for urban development M. Venkaiah Naidu, during his recent visit to AP, had assured about working towards providing Smart City status to Amaravati. So, the government and the CRDA are hopeful of Amaravati getting Smart City status.  The public who pooled their lands with the CRDA under Land Pooling Scheme (LPS) are happy over the submission of proposals for Smart City Challenge and are hoping getting the status.

The CRDA officials said that Amaravati was included in the list of 11 new cities selected for participating in Stage-2 of the Smart Cities Challenge. The challenge requires that the competing cities have to identify and propose broadly three areas of smart development City’s Smart Vision-Goals, Area-Based proposal and Pan City solution.

The officials explained that the area-based proposal would consist of plan to develop a contiguous area of minimum 250 acres into a fully Smart locality with efficient systems and services to the people who would reside in the area. Pan City solution consists of plan to develop a city wide infrastructure asset for efficient service delivery throughout the city.

The CRDA officials said that based on public consultation and wishes, opinion from social media platforms like https://www.facebook.com/PrajaRajadhani and https://twitter.com/prajarajadhani, development of proposed government complex with state-of- the-art Smart features was selected as the important area-based proposal of the Smart City challenge.

For the Pan City Solution, the water supply, flood management, employing smart technologies has been proposed. The total cost of the Smart Component of the proposal is estimated to be Rs 1,736 crore out of which, Rs 500 crore would be funded through Smart Cities Mission and AP government would support with a matching grant of Rs 500 crore. The balance funds would be sourced from other government schemes and funding agencies.

Amaravati Development Authority chairman J. Veeranjaneyulu said that all the MPs, MLAs, ministers and leaders should lobby for Smart City status for Amaravati. He opined that the new capital is facing financial difficulties and selection of Smart City will be helpful for the construction of a world-class new capital according to the wishes of the public.