October 14, 2015
WB Industry Minister holds meeting on smart cities with Bengaluru capatains of industries
The West Bengal government’s plans for six theme-based greenfield townships received a welcome boost as WB Finance and Industries Minister Dr Amit Mitra met technology biggies at the IT capital of India and chalked out a formula to bring in a synergy with smarter solutions for the developers.
“Town-makers and developers want smarter solutions to their big projects, while IT majors wish to get involved with the new townships. We, the government, would tell them to work together and create real smart and thematic townships–futuristic cities with sustainable solutions,“ Dr Mitra said.
Dr Mitra on Tuesday met tech honchos of 24 companies, such as Cisco, HP, PwC, Accenture and 3M, at the American Chamber of Commerce in Bangalore. Cisco is claimed to have evinced interest in investing in e-schooling, eHealth and street lighting in the theme-based township projects.
The six townships, Agnibina, Sports City , Teesta, Uttam City, Gitabitan and Samriddhi, will be put on the block through e-auction and global tendering process. A consortium of developers rom the UK, Europe, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and some private equi y players firms are interested in nvesting in intelligent and lowcost housing. “Almost all will go to Global Bengal Summit,“ Dr Mitra said. The developers’ consortium, represented by S Yasir Rizvi of Canopy and Ricardo Gontijo of Directional, told they would hold a recce during the Summit.
Dr Mitra said 250-odd entrepreneurs attended the meetings on Tuesday. He said 70 Karnataka firms and others will discuss investing in Bengal in the next few months and at the summit.
