If things go according to plan, the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) is set to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with IIT Bombay for its ‘smart Navi Mumbai’ initiative.
The MOU will have 24 points for its area development guidelines in which the NMMC has proposed pointers, which were discussed with the experts in the meeting between officials from NMMC and IIT Bombay. The area development guidelines will be taken into consideration for a particular area where the entire infrastructure related to the smart city will be developed and if the results are positive it will be replicated in the whole city, said officials from NMMC.
Mohan Dagaonkar, chief engineer, NMMC, said, “IIT Bombay has a consultancy department and we have proposed to them to sign a MoU for the smart city initiative. The components of the MoU will cover plan for education, health, environment, pedestrian walking path and also the bicycle lanes. We have also approached various institutes for consultations like that of various institutes of engineers and town planning departments from various cities.”
He further added, “We have decided on Kopar Khairane as the location where every project will be built and later will be replicated throughout Navi Mumbai in phases.”
The NMMC has also signed an MoU with European Business and Technology Centre (EBTC) for the smart city initiative. One of the components of the MoU was that the EBTC would act as the ‘handholding agency’ for the ‘smart Navi Mumbai’ project.
The NMMC had submitted its smart city plan to the state government on Saturday after which the government will give an approval and the same will be forwarded to the Union ministry of urban development which has the responsibility to shortlist and qualify 10 cities which will be announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 26,2015.
Dinesh Waghmare, municipal commissioner, NMMC, said, “We had prepared a draft of the MoU and have also submitted the same to an expert panel from IIT Bombay. We are anticipating a positive reply from them and we expect to sign the MoU by the end of December.”
The NMMC, in its smart city plan, has included dedicated bicycle lanes, Wi-Fi connectivity, closed-circuit television cameras (CCTV’s) around the city, lake beautification, additional footpaths, e-toilets and beautification of nullahs in the city.
The Union ministry of urban development has proposed 10 smart cities in Maharashtra. These include: Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan-Dombivali, Pune, Nashik, Amravati, Solapur, Aurangabad and Nagpur.
