Smart City is Development Project by Government, Not Political programme – MP Nalin
Manglauru: “From past 20 years people of Dakshina Kannada have continuously supported us and elected the BJP members. When Modi came to power, his vision was to make 100 smart cities in the country. In the first list of selected countries, Mangaluru was dropped from the smart city list and many were disappointed, but we were sure of being in the second list. When Minister Venkaiah Naidu came to Mangaluru we had briefed him about the road, railway, port, airport connectivity, education, Banking and medical facilities available in Mangaluru. After studying the situation, Venkaiah Naidu promised to include Mangaluru in smart city list and accordingly, Mangaluru has been included in the second list of Smart cities. I would like to thank Prime minister Modi and Minister Venkaiah Naidu”, said the MP Nalin Kumar Kateel in a press meet held at Hotel Ocean Pearl here on September 27.
Addressing the mediapersons Nalin said, “For the success of the Smart city project, we need support from the people and the State and union governments should work hand in hand. The MCC should be united, this is not a political programme but a development project of the government. MLA J R Lobo, district minister in-charge Ramanath Rai and others have worked hard towards this project. To formulate the guidelines, consultant Dharmaraj and former DC Ponnuraj have helped us a lot”.
The smart cities are two types, the brownfield cities and greenfield cities. Under the brown field city development, we have an area based proposal for 1628 acres identified in the central business district around Hampankatta, Bunder and Carstreet proposed for retrofitting and redevelopment under SCM. Fisheries Harbour redevelopment, Old port redevelopment, upgraded temple precinct / religious zone, Waterfront and Marina development, Mixed-use zone for IT services, offices, Small scale, industries, hospitality, and leisure alongside limited capacity factory functioning by adaptive reuse of tile factories, Upgrading district general hospitals, Public connector streets leading to waterfront development of commercial and retail zone and the Solar farm.
Under the Pan city development, the integrated citizen interface platform with dual access – “One touch Mangalore”, through mobile and “One Access Mangalore”, through the web.
Smart utility management will leverage the use of technology in utility systems to achieve tangible improvement in availability and utilization of public utility services. Pan city project will complete in 5 to 10 years and the area based project should be completed in 15 to 20 years project.
He also said that we will form a company to monitor and avoid corruption during the implementation of Smart city project. The company will consist of 17 directors with senior secretary level IAS officer from the union government and IAS ranking MD from the state government, one independent representative, 7 members from the Mangaluru City Corporation and 7 representatives from the state government including MLAs and MP. The company will be formed immediately to get the reserved funds, any funds granted from the Union government should be utilized within the given time frame. From the union government Rs 500 crore will be invested. After 5 years under the PPP model, we will try to generate revenue in the coming years. In 5 years we need to complete the project within the given time frame. The state government and the union government along with Mangalore city corporation should work unitedly for the success of the Smart city project. Mangalurueans are very lucky to have the smart city project and it is our duty to make the MCC and Dakshina Kannada a model one. We should not play politics in the smart city project. Prime minister Modi’s vision is to sanction Rs 1 crore for the Grama panchayat directly. It is a golden opportunity for the people of Dakshina Kannada district. We all should join hands forgetting party politics and work for the success of the smart city project.
Former MLA Yogish Bhat, Capt Ganesh Karnik, Deputy Mayor Sumitra Kariya, Opposition leader Roopa D Bangera and others were also present.