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New Town declared a Smart City

 During this period, New Town will get Rs 500 crore in five years from the Centre and another Rs 500 crore from the state government.

Debashis Sen, chairman of  West Bengal Housing and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO), said that the basic themes under the project are —improved quality of living, enhanced mobility and connectivity, increased safety and security, creating opportunities and formulation and support in implementation of enabling policies.

Under this project, around 960 acres in Action Area I will be developed as some sort of a pilot project under the Area Based Development head. The pan-city solutions should be largely Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based so that it is beneficial to all inhabitants of the city. All households in New Town will now be supplied with filtered water from June. Now, smart water meters will be installed to ensure 24x7 water supplies.

If the water supply is found faulty in any area, the West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) officials will address the problem at once. Similarly, smart electric meters will be installed to monitor uninterrupted power supply by New Town Electric Supply Corporation.

The area-based development zone will have solar panels that will be installed in all parks, playgrounds and on top of the link canal. A 3.4 km pathway will be set up on both sides of the link canal.

Five bus stands and one smart bus terminus, smart auto and e-rickshaw stands with charging facilities and app-based booking facilities will be set up. Nine parking lots will be constructed and CCTV cameras for surveillance will also be installed. Gateway of Kolkata, an iconic symbol, will be set up at the third rotary of New Town.

There will be facilities like grievance redressal system and single window clearance for ease in doing business. A 145 km pedestrian friendly pathway with street furniture and dedicated bicycle tracks will be laid which will have app-based booking facilities and bicycle stations under smart bicycle project. 
Five markets will have rooftop gardens with recycled rainwater under semi-transparent solar panels. 

There will be a comprehensive waste management scheme, starting from segregation at source to scientific processing and disposal. To help the residents, e-governance services will be installed. 
This will include issuing of birth and death certificates and payment of property tax at four centres.
For pan city, smart public information systems, a GPS-based intra city bus tracking system and integrated smart card based fare system will be installed to provide better facilities to the residents.
Since she came to power in 2011, apart from providing better facilities to the residents, Mamata Banerjee has also taken special attention to beautify New Town. 

The entire area has been given a facelift. New Town is coming up fast as a cultural hub. Eco Park, covering an area of 480 acres with 112 acres of water body, is now a tourist destination. Since its inception, nearly 50 lakh people have visited the park.

Bidhannagar, Haldia and Durgapur civic bodies will also submit their plan to the UD ministry in June for consideration as smart cities.
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