The focus of the smart cities project should be to enhance the quality of urban life through an integrated approach to urban planning and execution besides ensuring ‘inclusivity’, Minister of Urban Development and Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation M Venkaiah Naidu said on Tuesday.

Naidu was chairing a two-day brainstorming session to discuss and review the progress on conceptualisation of the ‘Smart Cities’ initiative.

Shankar Aggarwal, Secretary (Urban Development), said a smart city could be one with technology-based governance that enables efficient public services and has 24 x 7 water and power supply, 100 per cent sewerage, drainage and solid waste management facilities, besides top-class infrastructure. To mobilise the required resources, funding through public-private partnership, multi-lateral agencies, viability gap funding by the Central Government can be explored, Aggarwal added.

Union Minister of Power Piyush Goyal suggested that solid waste management and cleanliness should be addressed on priority for immediate impact. Referring to the development of smart cities, he said four or five such projects could be offered to States which have ready land availability.

The six dimensions of smart cities should be smart governance, smart mobility, smart environment, smart ecology, smart people and smart living, suggested Rajiv Pratap Rudy. He said based on the learnings of the experience of some Asian and other developed countries, India-specific models need to be evolved.

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