Ghaziabad selects trans-Hindon area as part of Smart City Plan

After failing to make it to the list of final 20 under the Central government’s ‘Smart City’ programme in January, Ghaziabad municipal corporation officials have amended their revised Smart City Plan (SCP) before its final submission date of June 30.

After failing to make it to the list of final 20 under the Central government’s ‘Smart City’ programme in January, Ghaziabad municipal corporation officials have amended their revised Smart City Plan (SCP) before its final submission date of June 30.

Area-based development includes redesigning of streets, availability of eco-friendly e-rickshaws, pedestrian facilities, traffic and public transport management, cycling facilities, development of vocational training institutions, start-up incubation facility, solar streetlights, CCTV surveillance and affordable housing. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

As a major highlight, the officials on Thursday selected one of the trans-Hindon areas near Vaishali and Kaushambi metro stations under the ‘area-based initiative’ where development is proposed under the SCP. The area includes development near the metro stations, Site 4 industrial area and nearby residential areas and slums.

“In the polling stage, citizens rated the area highly in need of development. Since we had to finalise the draft soon, the trans-Hindon area was finalised for development among the four proposed areas. Since the selected area is new, development would be easy. Under the previous SCP in January, we had proposed development of an area near Meerut Road industrial area,” said Sanjay Chauhan, the corporation’s executive engineer and nodal officer for SCP.

Area-based development includes redesigning of streets, availability of eco-friendly e-rickshaws, pedestrian facilities, traffic and public transport management, cycling facilities, development of vocational training institutions, start-up incubation facility, solar streetlights, CCTV surveillance and affordable housing.

As another change from the previous SCP, officials have proposed the ‘intelligent city platform’ (ICP) for the second part – ‘pan area development’. The ICP is proposed to have a command and control centre, traffic management solutions, an intelligent CCTV surveillance that can notify alerts in case of emergencies, and other services like e-governance and waste management. It will also include a citizen app for grievance redressal, parking management, cleanliness and citizen engagement.

The officials on Thursday also invited reputed corporate firms and were given presentations about industry solutions that can be incorporated for Ghaziabad city under the draft SCP to be submitted.

“We have selected at least 10 such companies and will sign MoUs with them in a day or two. Their solutions will be a part of our SCP and they can be called to implement if Ghaziabad gets selected in the forthcoming Smart City round,” said Chauhan.