ASCL bestowed mobility solution award

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 26

The second apex conference of smart cities CEOs was held at NDMC Convention Centre, New Delhi. Amritsar Smart City Limited (ASCL) had participated in mobility solution category with its project ‘City Investments to Innovate, Integrate and Sustain (CITIIS) Challenge’ launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) and had been awarded a grant of Rs 80 crore for the implementation of sustainable and green public transportation system in the city. It is the highest award money, which is sanctioned to implement the winning project in this competition. Komal Mittal, CEO of ASCL, received this award from HS Puri, Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs and H. Durga Shankar Mishra, Secretary MoHUA. In this competition, a total of 67 projects were submitted and only 13 got short-listed under various categories and Amritsar Smart City Ltd has been bestowed award for mobility solution.

The team is working from last approximately one year to develop more than 50 projects to make the holy city of Amritsar a smart city under the Smart City Mission, Mittal said. “The purpose of the Smart Cities Mission is to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local area development and harnessing technology, especially leading to smart outcomes. The objective of the special purpose vehicle ASCL is to promote the establishment and development of city of Amritsar as a smart city to provide a decent quality of life to its citizens and a clean and sustainable environment by the application of smart solutions like e-governance and various citizen centric services,” she said.

The proposed project will provide an e-mobility experience to all residents and visitors in the holy city. The city has an existing BRTS network, but the current system is not sufficient to cater to public transportation requirements of all citizens. The present share for public transport is 1.5 per cent and project aims at increasing it to 20 per cent through simultaneous reduction of private vehicles. The project primarily aims at an overall improvement of air quality of Amritsar by reduction in carbon footprint.

The ASCL project to implement green mobility shall be manifested through 30 electric buses and about 9000 electric three-wheelers being introduced in public transportation system to provide feeder service to the BRTS and also to enhance last mile connectivity. The project also includes creation of adequate charging infrastructure across the city which will further incentivize the citizens to shift towards more eco-friendly modes of transportation.