Each city, which is vying for the smart city tag, needs to think of a smart vision plan, said Mahesh Waghdhare, founding partner of StudioPOD (an agency involved in urban design and planning practice).
Making a presentation on ‘contextualizing global ideas for Indian cities’ at the ‘Smart Cities India’ conference, organised by Mangaluru City Corporation, here on Tuesday, he said that the smart cities will have to come up with their own solutions for development.
The cities will have to respond contextually for each of the scenarios, and all the stakeholders should collaborate actively, he said.
The city has the highest per capita revenue receipts compared with other Karnataka cities. However, a large chunk of revenue is from non-tax revenue sources, she said.
Mahesh Kashyap, a consultant on issues related to air and noise pollution, who spoke on ‘air and noise pollution issues for smart cities,’ suggested that Mangaluru include proposals on air quality index in its smart city plans. He said the increase in the number of vehicles is adding to the air and noise pollution in the city.
Pollution monitoring Stating that the government is planning to install a pollution monitoring station at Baikamapdy in the city, he said sensors could be installed at different parts of the city for real-time monitoring of pollution.
Later, speaking at a panel discussion, Dileep Kumar, vice-president of IIDC Ltd, said that a significant portion of the citizens of Mangaluru have stressed the need for focusing on transport system and economic growth activities in the smart city proposal.
DB Mehta, Chairman of the Mangaluru chapter of CREDAI (Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India), who chaired the panel discussion, highlighted the need for improving property tax collection in the city by taking up computerisation of the process.