Bhubaneswar/Cuttack, July 30: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik today launched a web portal called BhubaneswarOne as part of the ambitious Smart City project and also laid the foundation of 50 drinking water projects for various areas of the state and an LED streetlight system.
The BhubaneswarOne portal, which comes with a map of the city, contains data about hotels, hospitals, government offices, tourist places, markets, parks and more. Anyone can visit the portal and search for any particular place and get information about the nearby services and facilities.
The government will soon launch a mobile application with similar features. "It is a welcome initiative to provide such a platform for information. This will particularly help the visitors to the city," said Upasana Dutta, a private-sector employee who lives in Nayapalli.
The drinking water projects, of which Naveen laid the foundation stones today as part of the Biju Patnaik birth centenary celebrations, will be executed in 26 cities and towns of the state. Three of these projects are for Bhubaneswar, while 11 are for Cuttack.
The projects include connecting uncovered areas with new pipelines and construction of underground and overhead water reservoirs, among others. The government will spend around Rs 152 crore on these projects. The government estimates that some 13 lakh people across the state will be benefited by these projects.
"Our government is dedicated to providing basic facilities to the people whether in a village or a city. Work on nearly 200 drinking water projects has already been initiated," Naveen said.
In another development, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation today entered into an agreement with Neev Energy LLP, New Delhi, to install energy-efficient LED streetlights in the city.
Some 6,136 streetlamps will be lit up with the LED bulbs as part of the project. The government plans to save 80 per cent of current energy consumption with this project.
Similar LED streetlighting projects will also be executed in four other municipal corporations in Sambalpur, Cuttack, Berhampur, and Rourkela. Cuttack will get 16,069 such lights, while Berhampur will get 7,578, Rourkela 6,494 and Sambalpur 4,869. The project will be completed by next year.
Naveen today also laid the foundation for replacement of the old pipelines in Cuttack under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation.The public health engineering organisation (PHEO) plans to spend Rs 39 crore on replacement of the old-pipelines in several wards under Cuttack Municipal Corporation limits. #The old pipelines have always remained a cause for concern as the drinking water often got contaminated through leakages, causing jaundice and various other water-borne diseases.
The problem assumes serious proportions during the rainy season as most of the water supply pipelines pass through various drainage channels in several wards within the limits of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation.
Some 60 cases of jaundice were reported from areas, such as Jobra and Mehendipur in March this year.
The outbreak had then forced the civic officials to intensify sanitation measures, while the PHEO also replaced the old pipelines in the jaundice-affected pockets.
"As most of the pipelines are old and have already lived their service period, a plan has been chalked out to replace them in a phased manner," said superintending engineer of public health Basant Senapati.
