Chennai Smart City project to focus on traffic issue

Chennai: After a lull of two years, the Chennai smart city project will move forward in 2017, focussing on traffic congestion. Congested commercial hub T Nagar will be the first to benefit from the smart city project and the next area in the pipeline is Broadway, a senior corporation official said. The official also noted that the smart city project will progress at its own pace and has nothing to do with the current state political scenario. The Rs 200 crore smart city project has now cleared all the paper works and the complete recruitment process for Chennai smart city Ltd will be over by next month.

The neighbourhood of T Nagar like Pondy Bazaar, Mambalam, Pangal Park are to be studied and in the selected area, dedicated projects will be taken up. These projects will deal with issues like strengthening of the electrical network, water supply, solid waste management, IT connectivity and digitisation, sanitation, pedestrian-friendly pathways and ramp, non-motorised transport, intelligent traffic management systems and retrofit of green open spaces, the source added. “The dedicated Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) will soon start coordinating with the State, Chennai Corporation and the Union Ministry of urban development which funds the project”, Chennai corporation commissioner D. Karthikeyan said.

We are planning for a series of board meetings over the next few weeks to finalise the smart city plans and T Nagar will be the first locality to benefit from the project. Based on the pilot project experience the concept will be introduced to Broadway and other parts of north and south Chennai, top official told DC.

The SPV for Chennai will be responsible for overall supervision of the project starting with planning, approving, implementing and evaluating the development. Already a CEO and company secretary has been appointed for the project and another senior official for finance is to be appointed, Ripon Building sources said.

The Chennai Smart City Ltd (CSCL) formed under the Companies Act, 2013 will be promoted jointly by the state government and the Greater Chennai Corporation with an equal equity share holding and will be an independent body promoting the concept of smart city under which traffic, pollution, online services, water management and solar energy are to be dealt with advance technology.