Jharkhand making all efforts to build Ranchi as smart city

The Jharkhand government is making all efforts in building Ranchi as a smart city, said Urban Development, Housing and Transport Department Minister C P Singh here Monday. Inaugurating a workshop on 'Sustainable Urban Development' here, Singh said he was looking forward to receiving inputs from the conference which he hoped would help the government in its mission of building the state capital as a smart city. The two-day conference is being conducted as part of the Indo-German smart cities workshop series, organized by Heidelburg University, Impact and Policy Research Institute and Observer Research Organisation. The state government's Urban Development and Housing Department, Ranchi Smart City Corporation Ltd, the Central University of Jharkhand and the Indian Institute of Management, Ranchi, are also collaborating for the conference, which is the first of a kind in the city. Delivering the special address, Jharkhand chief secretary Sudhir Tripathi said that while the government is keen to build the cities as engines of growth, it would also give special attention to maintaining environmental balance. Concrete structures will have to be balanced with environment, he said. Since building the smart city is a multi-dimensional exercise with multi-stakeholders, Tripathi said it is a big challenge and easier said than done. Quoting the chief minister, he said the USP of Ranchi smart city has to be Ranchi itself. It should have all the characteristics of the city. Ajoy Kumar Singh, Principal Secretary, Urban Development & Housing Department, said the work being done at present in the mission and plan for undertaking more projects. He said the city would be built in an integrated way with all the digging, construction and infrastructure works taken up in tandem to avoid repeated constructions and diggings. He said the government has adopted a model tried successfully in Pune -- the area side approach to develop cities in Ranchi as well as other towns in the state. Ranchi Deputy Mayor Sanjeev Vijaywargiya hoped the inputs of the conference would help the city government in building an inclusive, smart city. In his opening remarks, Dr Radu Carciumaru, resident representative of Heidelberg University, said a series of such workshops have been organised in many parts of the country including Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore, Mumbai and Aizwal. CEO of Ranchi Smart City Corporation Ltd, Ashish Sanghmar, said the best and smart practices being followed by his team would also help in improving the governance practices of other government agencies, not only in Ranchi but other cities as well.