OdishaPlus Bureau
Housing and Urban Development Minister Pratap Jena Monday said that implementation of sustainable urban development through Smart Cities, Climate Smart Cities and ICT Adoption for Climate Change in Cities will immensely benefit Smart City Bhubaneswar.
Speaking at a ceremony where State Government and GIZ India signed a “Note of Technical Cooperation” for the these projects here, Jena said that implementation of these projects will benefit the Smart City immensely in the sector of developing urban poor housing, urban basic infrastructure and climate resilient action plan, focusing on Urban flooding, cyclone resistance solutions, reduction of vehicle pollution etc.
Special Secretary Urban Development Prem Kumar Jha signed the NoTC on behalf of the State Government while Tanaja Feldmann signed the agreement on behalf of GIZ India.
The Odisha Government is implementing three projects- Sustainable Urban Development-Smart Cities (SUD-SC). Climate Smart Cities (CSC) and ICT Adaptation for Climate Change in Cities (ICT-A) in partnership with GIZ (German Development Agency) and Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoH & UA).
These projects aim to improve the process of planning and implementing sustainable and integrated urban development solutions, to develop programmes and policies for climate resilient urban systems, and to develop ICT based solutions for ease of governance.
These projects will be developed and apply concepts for sustainable urban development regarding the provisioning of urban basic services and housing in three selected smart cities– Bhubaneswar (Odisha), Kochi (Kerala) and Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu).
The German contribution for all three projects combined is 16.4 million EUR (INR 127 Crores approximately), and the projects are expected to run until December 2021.These projects aim to support mission JAAGA & BASUDHA in capacity building of various stakeholders within December 2019.All the projects will be implemented by Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited.
Director GIZ Tanja Feldmann said on the occasion that India and Germany have been long-associated in development cooperation for 60 years and has shared an exceptional kinship.“The collaboration has proved to be feasible and significant, mainly because Germany’s strengths lie exactly in the core areas, wherein the Indian Government intends to achieve major development progress,” she said.
Through this partnership, GIZ will support the State government in developing integrated, sustainable, and climate resilient urban solutions for all people residing in state of Odisha. The projects would also support Bhubaneswar in becoming a Smart City.
The first activity under this collaboration would support the state government with various state led missions and programmes, that are already getting implemented in the cities. The solution will be up-scaled to two more cities in Odisha.