Smart City blueprint in citizens' hands now

Bhubaneswar: Prioritizing citizens' choice, the Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) has launched the 'Make your city smart' contest to involve citizens in designing the city's roads, junctions and parks.
On June 25, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the contest at Pune during the celebration of the first anniversary of the launch of the government's Smart City mission.
The details regarding the contest have been posted on smartcitybhubaneswar.gov.in. The citizens have been asked to send in designs of streets, junctions and parks. The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has identified the particular stretch, junction and parks which the citizens will design. The entries can be posted in the form of PowerPoint presentations. The best three designs will be awarded cash prizes. The winner will receive Rs 1 lakh. The last date of receiving entries is July 16.
For designing the street, BMC has selected the stretch from Vani Vihar Square to Ram Mandir Square. For junction, it has provided the options of Rajmahal and Rupali junctions and for designing parks, Saheed Nagar Robot Park and Differently Abled Park feature as options.
A BMC spokesperson said for the convenience of the participants, the website contains details of the existing infrastructure for the three categories. For example, for street, the website contains information on the width of road, whether there is pedestrian space, speed limit signage, median, underground drainage and street furniture.
The details of the on-street parking report have also been uploaded on the web portal. According to the report, till 12pm, 102 cars and 562 bikes are parked on the roads between Vani Vihar and Ram Mandir square. Between 12pm and 8pm, 152 cars and 838 bikes are parked on the stretch.