Surat to turn into Smart City before fiscal-end

In Surat, Rs 500 crore smart city schemes’ rollout before fiscal-end

The Diamond City is a forerunner when it comes to implementation of the smart city project and this has even been acknowledged by the central government often. Automatic fare collection system in buses, my Surat-citizen engagement enterprise and visual improvement project together worth Rs 500 crore will be launched by March-end. Surat has a smart city project fund of Rs 2,597 crore allocated to it for five years by the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India.

Fiber to home, intelligent traffic management system, smart LED lighting, air and water quality improvement and solar energy projects are also on the anvil.

“Many other cities are also developing these projects but they are on a smaller scale. Our projects have been designed keeping the future in mind. Surat’s automatic fare collection system project is being prepared for 2,000 buses when there are only 150-odd buses plying on the city roads now. Air and water quality improvement project covers all areas of the city and the river that passes through Surat,” special commissioner of the smart city project implementation, M Nagarajan said.

He said Surat’s smart city projects would take less time in their implementation but have high impact value. The city would start using smart applications for future development fast, he added.

The projects that would be launched before March 31 will be completed within a year’s time. “We expect results of these works to show by March 2018,” Nagarajan added.

Source: ET