eGovWatch: Smart City is NDMC budget’s main focus
Focussing on its ‘smart city’ plan, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) on Wednesday presented its annual surplus budget of Rs 27.20 crore for 2015-16. It listed a slew of projects that the civic body will undertake during the next financial year.
“A smart city cannot have only a few hours of water supply a day, or electricity outages, or streets and public places littered with garbage,” NDMC Chairperson Jalaj Srivastava said in his budget speech.
He said the smart city objective could only be achieved “by putting infrastructure and municipal services ahead of demand and by actively involving residents, entrepreneurs and visitors in this endeavour. “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, parking automation and mobile app, free WiFi, solar city project and 3D digital mapping are but a few baby steps in that direction,” Srivastava said.
Under the ‘smart city’ plan, the civic body plans to focus on generating solar energy, bringing in an automated parking facility, providing free WiFi in areas under its jurisdiction and installing LED streetlights.
From 3D digital mapping for urban planning to solar city project and waste-to-energy plants, automated parking, installation of outdoor gyms, setting up FIFA-class football academy and a skill development training centre — the NDMC expects to spend around Rs 3,126 crore the next financial year.
Underlining the work done by the council on some of the projects, Srivastava said, “We expect the solar city project to generate 1.7 MW of power from the first day of the next financial year.”
Speaking about a water-to-energy plant at Arjun Dass Camp, he said, “This plant will be fully functional by April 2015. In effect, it will convert nearly two tonnes of waste into 1 MW of power every hour.”
On the projects that the council plans to undertake in the healthcare sector, Srivastava said, “A new hospital has been proposed at the current site of the veterinary hospital, which will take at least 5 to 7 years to come up.”
