Diu becomes first Smart City to run on 100 per cent renewable energy

Diu Smart City has become the first city in India to run on renewable energy during daytime, setting a new benchmark for other cities to become clean and green. The city is offering its residents a subsidy of Rs 10, 000 to Rs 50,000 for installing 1-5KW roof top solar panels and its savings amount to 13,000 tonnes of carbon emissions every year.

Diu had been importing 73 per cent of its power from Gujarat until last year. It has now adopted a two-pronged approach whereby a 9 MW solar park spread over 50 hectares of barren land has been developed and solar panels have been installed on the roof tops on 79 government buildings that generate 1.3 MW annually, says a housing and urban affairs ministry release.

Due to low-cost solar energy, power tariffs have been cut in residential category by 10 per cent last year and 15 per cent this year.

To improve traffic management in Bengaluru Smart City, a prototype of an intelligent traffic management solution is currently being tested in collaboration with the Electronics City Township Authority (ELCITA).

It will provide traffic information that is currently unavailable, and help improve management of commuter traffic. It involves capturing video streams from several cameras and processing them using artificial intelligence so that typical traffic management tasks such as vehicle detection, traffic density estimation and control of traffic lights can be automated for real-time performance, it says.

To revitalise urban public spaces and socially activating the area besides generating economic activity, Jaipur Smart City Ltd (JSCL) has planned to develop night bazaar at Chaura Rasta, in the heart of Pink city.

The government plans to develop 100 smart cities under the Smart Cities Mission. Under the scheme, each city gets Rs 500 crore as central assistance for implementing projects. It has to be matched by an equal amount by the state. Since the launch of the Mission, Rs 9,939 crore has been released by the government. Against this, 753 projects worth Rs 24,511 crore have been completed or started work on-ground. Further, about 287 projects worth Rs. 14,296 crore are in tendering stage and the works on-ground is expected to start very soon, a ministry release has said.

The ministry has so far announced names of 99 smart cities. The 100th slot has been kept on hold for Shillong, capital of Meghalaya.