August 23, 2014
West Bengal to set up 10 smart cities
The West Bengalgovernment is planning to set up 10 smart cities. While there is no singledefinition of a “smart city”, the term loosely refers to cities usinginformation and technology (IT) to solve urban problems.
According to DebashisSen, Principal Secretary, State Urban Development Department, 10 areas ortownships have already been identified and a list of these will soon be sent tothe Centre for probable inclusion in the smart cities list.
The areas or townshipsselected include New Town-Rajarhat, Durgapur, Bolpur, Kalyani, Baruipur,Gangasagar, Debanandapur, Raghunathpur, Phulbari and Jaigaon.
Work on documentingthe smart city project has begun. Survey work is expected to start soon, thebureaucrat said. The basic infrastructure for the smart city will be developedby the State government, with a probable funding from the Centre, while housingand other requirements will be carried out by private developers.
