Bhubaneswar, Aug. 21: The process has started for setting up Bhubaneswar Urban Knowledge Centre, the third project under the ambitious Smart City Mission.

The knowledge centre will be a common platform between four major city authorities - Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, Bhubaneswar Development Authority and Bhubaneswar Puri Transport Corporation Limited - and will mainly look after capacity building of the planners.

A smart city official told this newspaper that the proposed project was being envisioned as a centre to provide knowledge-based support and contribute to organisational development and capacity-building inputs to all city agencies in the first year and act as a resource centre for the next two years.

The project aimed at bringing in an integrated master plan to provide a co-ordinated approach for city building, transportation planning, urban designing and building the city's heritage and cultural resources and system integration through the innovative use of technology.

The function of the knowledge centre also includes exchanging experience and communication at the national and international levels with urban researchers and civic administrators. It will further help build a network with other cities and institutions in India and abroad.

Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said that capacity building and a networking between the officials was necessary to get the desired results. "The upcoming knowledge centre will act as a link between all our city offices that mainly look after the development of Bhubaneswar. It will bring us under one roof where communicating with each other will became easier," said Jena.

Former IAS officer Jayanta Mishra said most government officials lack the expertise to carry out the work they are assigned. They need proper training for this purpose. "Capacity building is necessary for all. This would enable the officials to provide quality work. This will further resulted in a major benefit for the general public," said Mishra, a resident of Chandrasekharpur.

Saheed Nagar resident and teacher Sushil Kumar said: "It is a good initiative of the administration to have a school for officials. The plan of exchanging ideas with other bodies of the country and abroad will add further to the capacity of the officials."

The Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited recently launched its first project -BhubaneswarOne - under the Smart City project. It is a portal enabled with the map of Bhubaneswar, which provides information about the city to the people. The administration has also initiated the process to install modern traffic lighting system in the city.