Residents pitch in with smart city ideas : Hindustan Times

OUR VISION Quality education, environment conservation, e-governance, uninterrupted power on civic body’s agenda

CBD BELAPUR: Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) is participating in Smart Cities Mission and the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transfor mation ( AMRUT) schemes of the central government.

To ensure that the city is selected for the mission, eminent city architects, planners, developers, business organisations and NGOs were invited for a discussion at NMMC headquarters on Tuesday at a meeting at which mayor Sudhakar Sonawane and municipal commissioner Dinesh Waghmare were present along with top NMMC officials. City engineer Mohan Dagaonkar, through a power point presentation, gave details of the various aspects of the smart city mission.

“The NMMC general body meeting in June, that was presided over by mayor Sudhakar Sonawane had unanimously approved the participation of the city in the smart city mission,” said Dagaonkar. “Residents can offer their invaluable inputs to make Navi Mumbai a smart city by sending their suggestions through email on smartcity@nmmconline.com or cenmmc@yahoo.co.in,” he said.

Several eminent citizens and professionals at the meeting gave their suggestions on the topic.

The civic chief said that quality education, uninterrupted power, environment conservation and protection, solid waste management, health protection through hygiene and e-governance constitute the smart city concept. “Participation of people to provide good governance, health services, information and set process for security, affordable houses for the poor, effective transportation system and public transport, adequate water supply and the quality of other such services have to be developed further,” said Waghmare.

He said that the suggestions and discussion has helped them understand the expectations of services and amenities by the people. “These invaluable suggestions will help us while implementing plans to provide various services by helping us set the priorities,” said Waghmare.

“We are confident that we will get support from all sections of the society in the city in our path to the smart city mission,” he said.

In the first phase of smart city mission, 10 cities with over 1 lakh population in the state will compete for selection under the scheme. The names of these cities will be recommended to the central government.

“Our city Navi Mumbai has the capacity to make it to the mission. We hope to provide all the requisite services and amenities in the city with the help of all it constituents,” he added.