State capital, Kohima which has been selected among the 15 cities, would be competing in fast track category and second round competitions for Smart City Mission (SCM). In this regard, Kohima Municipal Council (KMC) and Voyant solution, consultant for Kohima smart city project, held an interaction with Kohima Press Club (KPC) at KMC office on Sunday evening. During the interaction various gaps that needed serious attention was identified in upgrading and improving smart city plan so that it could resubmit their proposals within the deadline.
Union urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu has fixed April 15 next as deadline for resubmitting the proposals. KMC administrator, Kovi Meyase pointed out that certain gaps identified were- disconnection between planning and implementation, city vision, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis of the city, resource mobilization and citizen participation and other technical issue.
He therefore, requested feedbacks through online and offline so that Kohima could get an opportunity to become smart city in the second phase. Stating that SCM would accept proposal that are implementable, the consultants informed that in the previous proposal submitted on December 15, 2015, MoUD had suggested a list that needed further discussion based on stakeholder consultation and available information for Kohima. The list included community led development, development of tourism and infrastructure based on the natural cultural assets of Kohima.
However, the consultants said that when proposal and strategy were to be converted, no land was available for development. The consultants also lamented that another shortcoming was lack of revenue generation. They suggested the need to create stronger identity of Kohima by overcoming land issue and come up with concrete proposals that could be implemented.