Five out of seven projects under Smart City Mission (SCM), approved by the special purpose vehicle (SPV) during the first phase, are currently in progress at Kohima town, Kohima Municipal Council (KMC) administrator Kovi Meyase disclosed here Thursday.
Meyase said this while speaking at a technical session of the one-day media workshop “VARTALAP” at East Gate Hotel here on Thursday, organised by Press Information Bureau under Union Ministry of Information & Broadcasting.
Regretting that Nagaland lacked the project about a year back, he, however, expressed joy for having implementing seven projects since September 2018 at a total cost of Rs 116.63 crore. He exuded confidence that the project would be completed on time and the standard of living in the State Capital would improve.
According to Meyase, Phase-I work in progress included beautification of Kohima town at an estimated project cost of Rs 10.58 crore, two multilevel parking slots at Old NST for Rs 28.79 crore and old medical directorate for Rs 31.21 crore, redevelopment of old Assembly secretariat area for Rs 4.51 crore and Kohima smart city and KMC offices with a budget of Rs 1.32 crore.
DPR for Cultural hall Kohima project estimated at Rs 36.22 crore has been approved and draft tender sent to CE (H) for approval. Further, Meyase said tender for Kohima town Wi-Fi project costing Rs. 4 crore had been put up.
Meyase said the autonomy and independence in its functioning were paramount and expressed the hope of maintaining them, while sharing details of the smart city plan envisioned for the citizens. “The autonomy and independent in its functioning is paramount. We are hopeful that we will be able to maintain that so that we can chart out our smart city plans as envisioned by the citizens and not otherwise,” he stressed. Towards this end, he appealed the media persons to be the watch dog to make SCM a reality.
Meanwhile, the Urban Development ministry had released Rs 111 crore so far with Rs 2 crore as advance for preparation of smart city proposals.
As per the guidelines, the State governments should contribute a matching share of 50% of the Central release. And Nagaland government has released Rs 2 crore as its matching share.
Wapcos has been appointed as PMC for Kohima smart city on October 30 for Rs 10.19 crore and the contract agreement was signed on November 22, 2018.
Kohima got selected as a smart city on September 20, 2016 during the second round of competition, while Kohima Smart City Development Ltd (KSCDL) was incorporated on March 24, 2017 under the Companies’ Act, 2013.
As per the smart city mission guideline, the SPV – constituted for KSCDL on March 9 2017 – will plan, apprises approve, release funds, implement, operate, monitor and evaluate the smart city development project.