Bhubaneswar: The Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) has begun developing the Intelligent City Operations and Management Centre, considered the brain of the smart city from where an array of operations of the city will be managed.

The centre, which will have a video wall, is being developed over 40,000sqft in the BMC-Bhawani Mall at Saheed Nagar. It will enable various city agencies to function in an integrated manner to deliver better public service.

The BSCL tweeted: "We have started execution work on war footing for setting up #CommandControlCentre-the backbone of implementation and monitoring system for #SmartSolutions projects like #AutomatedTrafficControlSystem in #Bhubaneswar."

Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said the centre would initially function temporarily from the BSCL's office in Saheed Nagar and later shifted permanently with more features to the new office at Satya Nagar. "We have already installed the smart traffic lights and it would be monitored from this centre now," said Jena.

Once established, the proposed intelligent centre will control the traffic lights, respond to emergency calls, manage safety and security with help of already installed close circuit television cameras and more. Later, the center will be equipped to manage a number of smartphone service applications of the smart city. At present, in the absence of the command centre, people are getting confused with the newly installed traffic signals.

"We are yet to get used to the new traffic lights," said Sarat Jena, a commuter near Shastri Nagar.

A BSCL official said they had switched on the lights on a pilot basis and would have full control shortly from the command centre.