Chief Secy inaugurates Roundtable on Governance in Smart Cities
Bhubaneswar, Oct 28: A roundtable deliberation on Governance in smart cities was organized here today in the premises of hotel Mayfair under the joint aegis of Dept of Electronics and Information Technology, Govt of Odisha Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and IFC involving senior representatives from State administration, ICT experts, IT companies, Municipal Corporations of Bhubaneswar and Rourkela along with other stakeholders.
Addressing the inaugural session of the roundtable , Chief Secretary Sri Gokul Chandra Pati emphasized that smart city should focus on smart governance, improved living conditions and more livelihood opportunities to match the growing urban population in urban area. Sri Pati said that the growth rate of population in Bhubaneswar has been around 3% during 2001-2011 compared to 1.5% for entire Odisha. The rate of growth would be higher after 2011. As such, the governance in smart city has to address the challenges relating to availability of adequate housing, sanitation, hygiene, health care, quick transport, quality power supply etc. The challenges need to be addressed through social engineering and adoption of ICT in management.
Presenting the welcome address, Principal Secretary Electronics and Information Technology Sri Pardeep Kumar Jena said that Bhubaneswar is in final stage of the competition to be one among 20 other cities of India for inclusion in smart city programme. Sri Jena added that Information & Communication Technology (ICT) would play a great role in smart city governance. The roundtable was organized as a part of the series of consultations being held with people and stakeholders to work out an effective action plan for smart city in Odisha.
Sri G. Mathivathanan, Secretary Housing & Urban Development in his opening remarks said that governance in smart city has to focus on finding smart solutions to the problems raised by rapid urbanization and quickest resolution of those problems. The essence of smart city, he added, is improvement in quality of life and living conditions. The session was addressed by theme experts like Mr. Aamer Azeemi, Managing Director of CISCO Systems and Mr. Navneet Chadha, Principal Operation Officer of IFC who lighted upon various practices adopted in some cities of different countries.
The one day Roundtable was scheduled in four sessions including the inaugural session and three technical sessions. The Technical Session-1 was scheduled to be chaired by Sri Upendra Nath Behera, Development Commissioner, Session-II by Sri Sanjiv Chopra Principal Secretary Industries and Session-III was to be chaired by Sri Pradeep Kumar Jena, Principal Secretary, E & IT, Govt of Odisha. The deliberations in the roundtable were going on by the time of preparing this report.