Rajkot, Gandhinagar trail as 72% Smart Cities projects completed in Gujarat

Six cities in Gujarat are among the 100 selected under the SCM’s Smart Cities Mission. Of the six states, Gandhinagar, which is also the capital of the state, is the least populated. Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, and Dahod are other cities on the list. State government data analyzed by The Indian Express also highlights that cities like Rajkot and the capital, Gandhinagar, have a much higher number of unfinished projects. If value of projects is taken into account, 56 per cent of projects in Rajkot worth Rs 2,162 crore are still incomplete, while 50 per cent of projects worth Rs 1,007 crore in Gandhinagar are in various stages of implementation.

“Land acquisition issues have delayed some projects in Rajkot, Gandhinagar and Dahod,” said an official from the Gujarat Urban Development Mission (GUDM), an arm of the state government to monitor project implementation. GUDM officials also say that some projects such as the Advanced Disease Warning and Control System for Ahmedabad were taken off the list during Covid. However, the reasons for this transition were not specified.

Launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015, 100 cities were selected in several rounds of the mission between 2016 and 2018. The center had promised to provide financial support for these projects for a period of five years ending in June 2023, and the deadline was recently extended by a year.

In Gujarat, 281 projects worth Rs 8,963 crore have been completed while another 63 projects worth Rs 3,510 crore are still in various stages of implementation. Central government, state government and urban local authorities largely provide financial support for these projects. Some of the projects like redevelopment of Sursagar Lake and widening of Kalagoda River Bridge in Vadodara, beautification and lighting of bridges Sardar Bridge, Ellisbridge and Nehru Bridge in Ahmedabad have been shortlisted.

In terms of project value, Surat has completed 92 per cent of the projects, Vadodara has completed 82 per cent of the projects, while Ahmedabad and Dahod have completed 74 per cent and 67 per cent of the projects respectively.

Get basic utilities

Dahod recently made headlines when the smart city administration demolished several buildings, including a century-old mosque and temples, to make way for a “road widening project” amid objections. With a population of 26,000, it is arguably the least urbanized of the many. Municipal companies in other cities already have projects listed under SCM in their jurisdiction.

Dahod is a municipality created in the year 1997, sharing borders with Banswara district of Rajasthan and Jappua district of Madhya Pradesh. While carrying out the task, Rs 150 crore was spent to install an integrated command and control center and a monitoring system like Ahmedabad was constructed at a cost of Rs 250 crore. There is also a “City Beautification Project” where artistic talents will be showcased.

Officials point out that choosing smaller towns like Dahod helped speed up the deployment of basic infrastructure that was lacking earlier.

Thanks to the smart city project, we have been able to quickly provide basic services such as drinking water, sewage system and storm water drainage to Dahod which is a remote area in the state. After Dahod was selected as a smart city in 2018, we did a lot of work, including providing drinking water to the water-scarce region. Among the many projects we have completed, we have enabled RFID tags on the waste collection trucks to ensure that the garbage is collected on a daily basis,” said Dr. Harshit Gosave, Dahod District Collector who also heads the special purpose vehicle that implements Smart City projects in Dahod.

Meanwhile, Amit Chavda, leader of the Congress legislative party in the Gujarat Assembly, points out the loopholes. Recalling his recent visit to Dahod for the Jan Manch party awareness campaign, he said, “When we were in Dahod, we came to know that an amount of over Rs 500 crore was spent in the city. Despite this, the residents had water supply once every six days. The administration has spent Rs 100 crore on beautifying the city lake, while the entire city faces traffic jams on a daily basis,” Chavda said, adding that the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) by the former UPA government gave similar central grants for infrastructure development. for the city.

Livestock risk monitoring and more

Under the Smart City project, 50,000 cattle in Ahmedabad have been injected with RFID tags or Radio Frequency Identification data by the Livestock Nuisance Control Division of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC).

Tags containing information about the animal’s age, breed, milk production, and owner details help authorities track down errant owners if cattle stray on city roads. It also prevents the illegal slaughter of cows and helps owners track their livestock.

Similarly, the Automated Land Trespass Prevention System is a video analytics based system that automatically detects incidents of trespassing on plots of land owned by Vadodara Municipal Corporation. This system has been implemented in all four regions of the company.

Intelligent transportation management systems, round-the-clock water supply systems, rainwater harvesting, treated wastewater reuse, smart street lights, rooftop solar power plants, sewage treatment plant upgrades, electronic self-disinfecting toilets, smart toilets Executed joint projects In the six cities of the mission.