Belagavi: The overwhelming participation of city residents in the initiative to get Belagavi city included in the first list of 20 cities to be shortlisted by the Centre for implementation of Smart City Project has impressed the union government.
On crossing one lakh submissions by people for the project, a presentation of the projects needed for the city was made by officials of Belagavi City Corporation in New Delhi. The Centre expressed immense satisfaction over the way Belagavi is getting ready for the mega project, says City Corporation Commissioner G Prabhu.
The corporation has received more than 1.2 lakh submissions from people through different modes of communication on developmental modules which the city needs under Smart City Project. Within the next one week, the City Corporation is expected to speed up the process of drawing up a final action plan by involving more people, says Mr Prabhu.
The Smart City proposal being drawn up by the corporation involves all the works needed to develop Belagavi into a model city. Based on several vital suggestions by people, models on improvement of roads, transport, traffic, water supply, drainage system, streetlights, footpaths, sanitation, garbage disposal, road connectivity, local transport, healthcare, vehicle-parking facilities, etc have been included in the action plan. Many locals also suggested improvement in the functioning of government departments, particularly the police department which has been included in the action plan.
A team of corporation officials gave a comprehensive presentation of all the preliminary works done by the corporation to the Centre recently.
A Citizens Advisory Committee constituted by the corporation to fine-tune its final proposal held its first meeting at the corporation on Wednesday and came up with many innovative ideas that could be included in the final plan. Based on the historical importance of Belagavi and the available infrastructure, some members of the committee suggested the corporation rework the proposal to impress the Centre.
According to sources, Belagavi is ahead in terms of people's participation in the project compared to all six cities where Smart City Project is proposed to be implemented in the state. In the next one week, the corporation is focusing on involving at least few more thousands of people in the project in an attempt to get new ideas on development.
By December 15, the Smart City Proposal to be drawn up by authorities on all six cities of the state should reach the Centre. Prior to that, the corporation is expected to submit the same proposal to a high-power committee.
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