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Odisha: Bhubaneswar Smart City Proposal wins prestigious Canadian design award

The international jury has viewed the Smart City Proposal of Bhubaneswar as an excellent example of a model of sustainable urbanization that has the transformative potential to provide citizens with prosperity, safety, and equity.

It can be mentioned here that the Smart City Proposal of Bhubaneswar was unique for its inclusiveness with inputs from children, women, social service organisations, elderly, physically challenged and transgender. It has also used the social media tools to its maximum capacity for gaining the people’s verdict in choosing the priority areas and also selecting the smart city district and pan-city solutions.

While the smart district will include development of an area of 985 acres between Bapuji Nagar and Saheed Nagar having several important project components, the pan-city proposal will include state-of-the-art integrated City Operation and Management Centre (ICOMC).

The smart district, called as the Bhubaneswar Town Centre District will have several focus area like transit oriented development, financial sustainability, world-class infrastructure, socio-economic development, mixed land use pattern and its cost will be Rs 4,095 crore.

Similarly, the ICOMC will have leading components like efficient traffic management, parking, transit operation, common payment card and 24X7 surveillance, emergency response and city incident management system. The pan-city proposal will cost Rs 442 crore. The entire proposal will cost Rs 4,537 crore.

The uniqueness of the Bhubaneswar Smart City Plan is that it played a pivotal role in redefining existing planning processes for developing countries. The focus is on transitioning from conventional urban spatial planning to prioritization of solutions based on the “three-legged” approach adopted from the New Urban Agenda of Habitat III, formally known as the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development - legal systems, urban planning, and local fiscal systems.