WORKING GROUPS FOR ‘SMART CITY’ FORMED

The Tamil Nadu Urban Finance and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd and the city corporation held a meeting on Friday to seek opinion on the smart city proposal and also form various working groups. A senior corporation officer told TOI that the meeting was mainly held to form working groups for lake restoration and renovation, traffic movement, infrastructure planning, parks and open spaces and non-motorized transport.”The representatives were shown a power point presentation of the proposal and opinions were sought on the project. Very soon, tenders would be called for these projects and before that we wanted to ensure that all the gaps were filled,” the corporation official said.

NGOs also made several suggestions on decentralizing the entire project and also ensuring more public participation. “Many works such as desilting the lakes and technology development could be done by non-profit organisations. It would save a lot of money,” said an official. The meeting was chaired by P W C Davidar, chairman and managing director of TUFIDCO. City corporation commissioner K Vijayakarthikeyan, urban planners, industrialists and members of city-based NGOs took part in the meeting held at the Tamil Nadu Institute of Urban Studies.