Bhubaneswar: Housing and urban development minister Niranjan Pujari on Saturday visited the office of Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) to take stock of the various smart city projects being executed in the state capital.
Pujari spent more than an-hour-and-a-half at the BSCL office in BMC-Bhawani Mall and checked on the progress of the Bhubaneswar Operations Centre, for which the chief minister had specifically visited the office on May 31.
The urban development minister also took stock of other major smart city projects. Office bearers of the BSCL briefed the minister on projects such as Smart Janpath, Smart Solutions, Smart Traffic Signalling System, Common Payment Card, Solar City Roof Top, Saheed Nagar and Raj Mahal Multi-Level Car Parking, Social Equity Centre, Integrated Public Services Centre, Smart Parks and Sensory Park.
Discussions were held on the introduction of the Integrated Infrastructure Improvement such as the Railway Station Multi-modal Hub, Lake Neutral, Satya Nagar Institutional Core and other initiatives to make Bhubaneswar Socially Smart.
"We have briefed the minister on almost all the projects," said an official of the BSCL. He said the minister more stress on the slum redevelopment and rehabilitation projects. "He instructed to complete projects on time so as to retain the image of Bhubaneswar being country's top smart city. We put several projects on fast track."
Keeping the hockey world cup in mind, the officials have put several smart city projects, including Smart Janpath, Smart Traffic Signalling System and Public Bi-Cycle Sharing programme, on fast track.
"We are on the right track to complete most of the smart city projects ahead of time. The traffic signals are already functional at all the 56 junctions while work is on to get the pelican system operational by this month.
Smart Janpath work is also nearing half way to its completion," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.
"I have been watching the rigorous infrastructure work in city and hope the administration completes them on time," said Patia resident Pritam Jena.
Eviction
The central eviction monitoring committee of the state government on Saturday took up a major eviction drive in the Damana area for clearing a land of encroachment. The land was meant for construction of additional infrastructure of Damana UP School.
During the drive, the officials demolished a building used as a youth club along with its boundary wall and freed about 0.2 decimals of land. The squad also evicted an extended part of an Opelfed booth, an ironing cabin and a temporary house from the approach road to the land from Damana Square.
