UT to hire consultant for ‘smart’ proposal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 28

As the Union Ministry of Urban Development has chosen Chandigarh among 98 cities for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship Smart City Mission, the UT Administration will now hire a consultant to prepare a smart city proposal to ensure the City Beautiful makes it to the stage two of the competition and finds a place among top 20 smart cities of the country.

The Administration has already started the process and senior officials of the UT and the Municipal Corporation are working on it.

The UT has floated tenders to engage a consultant for the purpose and a meeting in this regard will now be held on September 2.

Recently, the Administration and the MC had held a citizen interaction programme, “Smart city mega event”, at Tagore Theatre in Sector 18 here to seek residengs’ ideas, views and suggestions, which will be incorporated in the smart city proposal.

At the event, copies of “Citizen consultation booklet” were distributed among the participants. The booklet had a brief description about the Smart City Mission and how one could contribute towards it by submitting their ideas.

UT to compete for a place among top 20 smart cities

Now, 100 potential smart cities will prepare ‘smart city proposals’, which will be rigorously evaluated in the stage two of the competition for the purpose of prioritising cities for financing. In the first round of this stage, 20 top scorers will be chosen for funding during the current financial year.

The remaining cities would be asked to make up the deficiencies identified by the Apex Committee in the Ministry of Urban Development for participation in the next two rounds of the competition. 40 cities each will be selected for financing during the next rounds of competition.

Stage 2 of Smart City Mission

• The stage two criteria for evaluation of ‘smart city proposals’ involves city-level evaluation (30 points) and proposal-level evaluation (70 points).
• The city-level evaluation system encompasses improvement in the operational efficiency over the last three years as reflected in average time taken to give building plan approvals, increase in property tax assessment and collection, collection of user charges for water, improvement in power supply, easing of traffic congestion, online accessing of statutory documents through adoption of IT etc.
• In the proposal-level evaluation, it is to be seen as to what extent the proposal is inclusive in terms of benefits to the poor and disadvantaged, employment generation, articulation of quantifiable outcomes based on citizen consultations, impact on environment, among others.
• It will also examine cost-effectiveness of ‘smart city plans’ such as application of smart solutions for doing more with lesser resources, alternatives considered to enhance cost effectiveness of the proposal, firming up of resources required from various sources, provision for operation and maintenance costs and IT interventions to improve public service delivery.

What Admn will focus on

• 24X7 water supply
• Uninterrupted power supply 
• To provide a majority of public-related services online 
• To improve solid waste management in the city. In the Swach Bharat rankings recently, Chandigarh had slipped from the top position to 21. 
• To end parking woes. Parking is a major problem in the city. The UT Administration is trying to building more parking lots. People are being discouraged from using vehicles. The MC has also proposed to start hour-based parking system in all paid parking lots. The parking charges will go up to Rs 20. 
• To improve transport system. Recently, Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana and the Centre had signed an MoU for the Metro rail project.

How city residents can contribute

• The UT has developed a smart city app through which citizens can submit their views and suggestions.
• Residents can also log in at http://www.mygov.in. and give their suggestions on five topics — water reforms, electricity reforms, sanitation plan, urban mobility plan and smart city. 
• The Administration has also created a Facebook page, “Smart Chandigarh”, and an e-mail ID [email protected] to get views from city residents.