Smart City Project set to begin in city

Rachna Khaira

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, January 18

The city will soon step into the world of “smart living” as the smart city project is all set to kick-start by the end of this month.

The Municipal Corporation of Jalandhar (MCJ) is soon going to release work orders worth Rs 967 crore to carry out 10 major projects under the plan.

A meeting pertaining to this was held which was attended by top officials of the district administration and smart city CEO Girish Dayalan.

The major projects include solid waste project, sports hub at Burlton Park, e-rickshaws, smart road at Model town and water and sewerage project.

A team comprising Dayalan, MC Commissioner Dr Basant Garg, Congress MLAs Bawa Henry and Pargat Singh, and Police Commissioner Praveen Sinha had left for Ahmedabad to study the viability of a convertible multipurpose stadium at Vadodara.

Also, the team would study the working of the Integrated Command and Control centre and will ascertain ways to bring the two facilities here.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the convertible stadium at Vadodara which has the facility of both indoor and outdoor sports games. A similar stadium is expected to get constructed at the Burlton Park which will have facilities of over 17 different sports, excluding cricket. The project is expected to be completed at a whopping cost of Rs 567.13 crore.

Major projects

Solar power project at MC building rooftop: A DPR at an estimated cost of Rs 150 crore will be prepared in the next three months.

Public transport (phase wise)

CNG autos : 4000 diesel autos will be converted to the CNG. Around 9 crores will be released as a subsidy to over 3000 auto owners. Also, 10 locations will be converted into parking areas at an estimated cost of Rs 4 crore.

E-rickshaws: Rs 2.2 crore will be spent to introduce around 200 e-rickshaws in the city. Under the project, charging points will be identified at various locations.

Smart buses: The city is expected to get Rs 60 crore under the AMRUT project to introduce smart buses at some selected routes. Though Dayalan said looking at the demography of the city, the buses would only add to the traffic congestion in city area, he said that buses would be introduced at some crucial routes which will help reduce the traffic in the area. The buses would also have GPS tracking system.

Smart road: A 2 km smart road will be constructed in model town area at an estimated cost of Rs 22 crore.

Smart parking: Rs 45 crore will be spent to construct smart parking of over 600 cars at six places in the city.

Junction improvement: Rs 25 crore will be spent to improve the major road junctions in the city. This includes Guru Nanak Mission Chowk, Nakodar Cowk, Bhagwan valmiki Chowk, Guru amardas Chowk, Guru Ravidas Chowk, HMV College, Kapurthala Chowk, PNB Chowk, BMC Chowk and PAP Chowk. Under the smart city project, six foot overbridges with escalators are expected to get constructed in these junctions.

Integrated Command and Control Centre: The CEO said the first in the line of the smart city project would be a command and communication centre, which would communicate with other city systems such as early warning systems, emergency response forces, utilities (energy, water and sewage SCADA systems), transportation, city surveillance and citizen engagement platform.

“The centre will have convergence of all city applications through a portal. The live city dashboards will continuously display live integrating date from various departments. The surveillance of the city will be done from a high mounted video wall with on screen alerts for important events,” added Dayalan.

Environmental improvement project: Around Rs 20 crores will be spent on the improvement and upgradation of 15 prominent parks in the city. This majorly includes Beant Singh Park, Shaheed Udham Singh Park, Defence Colony Park, Manmohan Kalia Park, Old Jawahar Nagar Park, JP Nagar Park, KP Park, New Model House Park, Industrial Area Park, Bhagat Singh Colony Park, Salempur Park, Gadaipur Park, Industrial area phase 5 Park and Chowkaan Kalan Park.

Public area beautification Rs 3.7 crore will be spent to beautify the area outside the bus stand, DAV College, BMC elevated road, Maqsudan flyover and RUB on Domoria Bridge.

Canal area rejuvenation Under the smart city project, around Rs 7.5 crore is expected to be spent on the rejuvenation of the 4.8 km long canal area situated in the city.

Slaughter houses: Rs 41 lakh will be spent to establish a common slaughter house in over 2 acres. 

Solid waste project: Taking away the much controversial project from the MCJ, the smart city will now implement it on the Public-Private Partnership mode. (PPP mode). The city is generating over 500 tonnes of waste every day.

Burlton Park Sports Hub: An amount of Rs 567.13 crore will be spent to implement the project on the PPP mode. While a cricket stadium will be constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 148.4 crore, another Rs 24.21 crore will be spent to develop the infrastructure around it. Also, Rs 4.55 crore will be spent to construct a swimming pool of international standards. While Rs 32.56 crore will be spent to construct a multi level car parking in the area, Rs 329.3 crore will be spent to construct arena and a hotel in the park. The remaining Rs 17.09 crore will be spent on other miscellaneous expenses.

Area Based Development (ABD): Under the safety and security ducting project, fire hydrants will be installed in congested market areas, including Rainak Bazaar.