Nagpur: Both the state governnment and NMC have been trying hard to get Nagpur into the list of prospective smart cities being earmarked for development by the Central Government. However the previous two attempts to put Nagpur into the list failed miserably on various counts. This time the State Government appears to be in no mood to let go, as it has now roped in private entity to sail Nagpur smooth on the parameters of being called as smart city.
Sources informed that Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has received a letter of intent appointing it as the implementation partner to convert Nagpur, the into the country’s first large-scale integrated smart city. This is in line with the government’s vision to use vanguard technology for creating smart solutions to improve quality of life of citizens.
1200 km optical fibre network in phase I
The scope of work in phase 1 for L&T’s smart world communications business vertical, which is a part of L&T Construction, will cover laying of 1200 km of optical fibre network backbone, creating 136 City Wi-Fi hotspots at key locations, establishing 100 digital interactive kiosks and developing city surveillance systems with 3800 IP based cameras. Further, as an avant-garde endeavour, the city has identified a strip of approximately 6 km (from Japanese Garden Square to Orange City Hospital Square) to be developed as a ‘Smart Strip’ with state-of-the-art systems powered by smart ICT interventions like smart transport, solid waste management, smart lighting, etc. which can be leveraged in a phased manner to ultimately cover the entire city.
Transforming Nagpur…
“After Jaipur, this is the most significant step in the country’s journey towards establishing smart cities and we are delighted to be participating in transforming Nagpur into one. As a master systems integrator, we will provide leading edge technology solutions including high end analytics, mobile surveillance and high-tech tools like drones,” said S N Subrahmanyan, deputy managing director and president, Larsen & Toubro.
Gujarat model to be implemented?
L&T’s smart world business has been making its presence felt across some of the major Indian cities by creating smart solutions. Beginning with the development of surveillance and intelligent traffic management systems for the Government of Gujarat in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Vadodara and a surveillance and management system of critical infrastructure at the Sabarmati Jail, the business has since executed the smart city project in Jaipur and is executing India’s largest city surveillance project comprising 6000 cameras across 1500+ locations in Mumbai for the Government of Maharashtra. Projects are also underway in Delhi, Lucknow and Hyderabad.
