Smart City Project: Vadodara aims to become manufacturing hub

The Vadodara civic authority has expressed hope that the city will be developed as an "innovative manufacturing hub" under the smart city mission.

Vadodara made it to the the third list of the smart city project announced by the Centre in New Delhi yesterday. Under the mission, the government aims to have 100 smart cities by 2022.

60 cities have been chosen so far. 20 were selected in January and 13 in May. The remaining will be picked by 2018.

City Municipal Commissioner Dr Vinod Rao said, "Vadodara aspires to become an innovative hub for manufacturing by leveraging its economic strength and transforming itself into a cleaner and greener city by introducing a smarter way of living." The final upgraded Smart City Proposal (SCP) submitted to the Urban Development Ministry has been developed keeping in view this objective, he said.

"The city would be developed as a smart city at an estimated cost of Rs 2,010 crores. As per the smart city guideline, two types of project based on coverage of city shall be prepared. First, a PAN city project which covers entire Vadodara and second, Area Based Development (ABD) which covers specific area of the city," he said.

Rao informed that the civic body had prepared the revised proposal through audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers India.

Data collection on various aspects such as water supply, power supply, sanitation including solid waste management, mobility and public transport, affordable housing, IT connectivity and digitisation, health and education was taken into account to prepare the proposal.