Bhubaneswar, Nov. 21: A school dedicating its annual exhibition to the smart city concept marks the popularity that the municipal corporation's campaign is gaining among residents.

Students of DAV Public School, Pokhariput, today organised its annual exhibition under the theme "Cleanliness and Smart City", in which over 250 students displayed their models, explaining areas in science, social studies, mathematics, life skills, yoga, art, dance and music - but with a smart twist.

"Every year the annual exhibition gets a theme. This year as the city is in the running to be listed as one of the first 20 smart cities in the country, we have decided to have a theme on the same," said principal Sujata.

Barnali Das, a Class VI student, said: "Various exhibits by students on the different components of smart city, that is urban transport, drinking water supply, waste disposal, pollution control and maintaining green cover, were displayed through interesting models."

This afternoon, 500 students of Sikshya O Anusandhan (SOA) University took part in a mass social media campaign and tweeted messages on various smart city themes. The students also joined the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation's Facebook page with the intention of making the campaign popular on social media.

Satish Kumar Samal, who is pursuing his MTech from Institute of Technology Education and Research under the SOA, said: "Apart from taking part in social media campaigns, the varsity students had also volunteered to do a baseline survey on the smart district survey that held last week."

Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said the city, with 53,300 members (at 6.10 this evening) on its Facebook page, is on the top of the chart from among the 20 cities, which are in the running to be developed as the first smart cities in the country. "Once the final proposal is submitted to the Centre, second-level citizens' connect activities will be organised," he said.

Jena said that engaging 11,300 people in various interactive sessions to find smart solutions such as urban mobility and waste disposal apart from choosing the smart district had helped the city get around 1.5 crore hits on social media in a month.

The corporation today organised a meeting of the transgender community and took their views and suggestions. These will be included in the final proposal of the smart city. A smart city lab was also organised at IIT Bhubaneswar.