Abuzz with activity, smart city New Town proves a game changer

Its 5 pm on Sunday evening and Eco Park, one of the most visited spots in New Town on the north-eastern fringe of Kolkata is buzzing with activity. The arterial road (Biswa Bangla Sarani) and the service road leading to Eco Park have innumerable cars look out for parking space. A little patience and they are all accommodated.

“Traffic management in New Town is extraordinary,” says the taxi driver, as he navigates an array of private vehicles. The speedometer reaches 70 km/hr; but he is unperturbed and keeps chatting on the “well-managed” and “disciplined” traffic here – even on weekdays – as compared to Kolkata proper.

When people talk of New Town-Rajarhat, they also talk about the wide, well-planned streets, the well demarcated lanes for fast and slow moving vehicles, perfectly spaced traffic signals, a vast expanse of greenery, well-decorated roadside gardens, luxurious condominiums, office buildings, the absence of traffic snarls and most importantly, ample car parking spaces. In short, the destination for “good-living.”

“I won’t mind calling it a smart city,” says Aninda Datta, a daily commuter who works for an IT-major housed in the area. In fact, that’s what New Town is striving to be today.

Although New Town failed to make it to the first list of 20, some modifications later, the township was sixth in the second list of 13 proposed smart-cities. (overall ranked 26 among 33)

New Town is a planned township. So it is no surprise that the West Bengal government has so far spent ₹6,000 crore on ramping up infra in the 7,000-odd acres at its show-piece project.

Debashis Sen, the Chairman of the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) – the urban local body looking into civic affairs of the area – credits the success to the people-to-people interactions and the hands-on approach his team has painstakingly taken to understand the need of area: get the basic infra right and ensure that these work 24x7.

He shares a story where a young lady defines a smart city as one with free and uninterrupted Wi-Fi connections; both at homes and in public places. For some, a smart city is all about having a ramp to enable easy access to people using wheel-chairs.

Wi-Fi connections are already in place along a 12-km length of the arterial road; ramps will be constructed soon.

“Yes, the definition of smart city varies. But it is about how easily services can reach the common man,” he tells BusinessLine .

Today, New Town caters to just one lakh population (fixed and floating) as against a plan of 10 lakh residents and around 2.5 lakh floating population. But, Sen knows he cannot be complacent just because New Town has path-breaking infrastructure already. He needs the township to be a smart city.

Smart city proposals come in two parts.

The area-based development, under the smart city project, will cover 900 acres. It will see additions such as solar panels in parks and playgrounds, smart bus and e-rickshaw stands (app-based booking system), car-pooling, smart electricity meters, telemedicine kiosks and app-based health services, dedicated cycle tracks (smart bicycle project) comprehensive waste management, and so on.

Pan-city proposals will rely mostly on ICT solutions, e-governance services, leveraging GPS, amongst others, backed by high speed Wi-Fi or broadband connection.

Sen also plans to have a citizen responsive grievance management system (called Ananda Babu).

Around 350 square metres of the arterial road will act as a “development lab” – all implementations will be carried out here as a pilot before being replicated elsewhere.

Ambitious projects have often faltered at implementation. So nothing is left to chance. He has ensured a time-bound delivery mechanism and closed monitoring to adhere to deadlines.

In five years, the operational cost of the project will be ₹1,500 crore, Sen maintains. Around ₹1,000 crore will come from Central and State coffers – each giving ₹100 crore every year for half a decade. The remaining will have to be through convergence of other government projects and public-private-partnerships (PPPs).

“The ultimate aim is to make the projects self-financing – generating own revenues,” he points out.

Proposals to form a special purpose vehicle (SPV) – overseeing implementation – are being prepared.

Sen, who is also the Additional Chief Secretary of the State Urban Development department, is now dreaming big. He wants three more smart cities in the State – Haldia, Durgapur and Bidhannagar. Work on these have begun.