Augmenting Smart City Trivandrum with Tourism

What progress has been made by Trivandrum Smart City, ever since its inception?

Trivandrum Smart City has come into existence after the third phase of Smart Cities challenge organised by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) under the Government of India. Incidentally, Trivandrum Smart City has secured the numero-uno position for itself in the competition and has been done after extensive consultation with the people and the stakeholders. Our Smart City project have been inclusive about citizen’s opinion even at ward level, before we submitted it to MoHUA; which has added on to the detailing and inclusiveness of our smart city project. Based on this we have formed a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) last year in June 2018 and the project has started in August 2018, soon after the selection of consultancy and other related tasks.

 Since the last one year, we have been working on 44 projects, which has been approved under our Smart City Project plan and we have made tremendous progress in completion and implementation of almost all the projects. Till now the total value of our Smart City Project is Rs 1538 crores. Till the month of July 2019, we have already passed administrative sanctions worth Rs 156 crores already and most of them has started their next phase of execution of technical sanctions. The Government of India, Smart City Mission has given us a mandate of execution and completion of all projects under the Smart City Project (SCP) of third phase has to be completed by March 2020 and we are well ahead of schedule and we have completed all our projects by Dec 2019 itself. By November 2019, we had delivered administrative sanctions to all the projects of SCP, which we intend to roll out in Trivandrum city.

Will you share with us, what are the key projects that are going on under the Smart City Project in Trivandrum?

When we have conceptualized our Smart City Projects, we have designed them in six main modules, namely, urban basic services, land use efficiency, cultural identity and heritage, resilience and eco-friendliness, socio-economic inclusiveness and various pan-city solutions mostly touch-based with the information and communication technology part. In that we have paid huge importance to the information technology component for building a smart city,  for which we are bringing out a whole array of IT based solutions to curb the traffic and safety surveillance related issues.

An Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) is soon to come up in Trivandrum city for this purpose, for which we have already given administrative sanction, and have also obtained technical sanction already. Under this, the entire city will be using technology to enable decision-making by the police and traffic control authorities and motor vehicle department.

In that context, we are already putting up 885 cameras, across the Trivandrum city to monitor the traffic and safety surveillance of the city. These cameras are equipped with latest state of the art equipment for monitoring traffic violation, speed violation and automated number plate recognition technique, to streamline and seamlessly monitor the city traffic and safety conditions. These cameras which are to be installed in about 100 junctions across Trivandrum city will set a benchmark for surveillance of city traffic conditions and enhancing citizen safety standards.

What are the key components that comprise the module Urban Basic Solutions and how far has been the progress in this front?

We have already awarded administrative sanctions worth Rs. 566 crores under this module and the components that we have included under this specific banner are core basis issues faced at citizen- level across the society. One of the prime challenges under Urban Basic solution is growing problem of traffic in the city, for which we are soon to come up with multi-level parking at various important places. Also, we are focussing to develop the public spaces, which are intended to engage citizens to improve their quality of life-style. Presently, under Trivandrum Municipal Corporation there are lot of such public spaces which are sustainable and important for citizens to evolve their life-style, while we are developing more such public spaces, wherein, we are installing open gym equipment. There is a dearth of public toilets and their maintenance in the city, in which we have already started the work.

Another important component that is the bus stops in the corporation area will be made smart bus-stops and we will be putting up interactive kiosks and display boards across the area based development (ABD) area of the Trivandrum Smart City.

Coming back to the integration of Urban Areas, we are also working to integrate the market places in the city in a specific area, making it convenient for citizen use. The Paliyam Market redevelopment plan is to devote the entire ground floor for vending, wherein it will house about 490 vendors, mostly, fish sellers, fruit and vegetable vendors. The entire Smart Market project here covers a total area of 17741.96 sq. m.

Another major development that we are working on is the slum development of the area. We have three big slums here in the region of which we have taken up on revamping the Rajaji Nagar slum and is focussing on building planned and hygienic construction structures with proper sanitation, drinking water supply, electricity and equipped with self-sustained market. With these initiatives, this slum region will witness a major urban facelift.

To what extent is the public transportation system modified in the city of Trivandrum?

One of the major projects that Trivandrum Smart City Limited is working on is Smart Road, in which we are pumping in about 30 percent of our budget. Smart Road has various components including storm water drainage, underground network of electricity, water authority, telecom optical fibre network and other host of components. It also include components as road and junction improvements, signage, cycle-tracks, footpaths, pavers etc. implementing all of these components will take about Rs 550 crores of the total Smart City Project cost.

We have about 72 kilo meters of roads which will be converted into smart roads, of which project worth Rs. 245 crores has been granted administrative sanction and is under the technical sanction phase. Given the context of public bicycle sharing project which will be additional feature on top of the Smart Roads. Our smart roads in Trivandrum will have a carriage way on which vehicles move and will be revamped to smart roads standard. All the utilities for public usage, which are in the middle of the carriage way will thus, move inside the town, or on the sides or both shoulders of the carriage way. Once both the shoulders on either side of the roads are laid to perfect, then the pavering will be done, public bicycle sharing will be implemented with proper bicycle tracks laid down too.

Thus, with all this done, we are confident that paving of the smart roads will change the way Trivandrum Smart City will progress in times to come.

How is Trivandrum Smart City tackling with the waste management issue?

Waste management and eco-friendly activities are also one of the key components for growth and development of Smart City in Trivandrum. We are bringing in a couple of innovative concepts of bio-degradable bins called- ‘Aero-bins’, which we are setting up in about five or six key places in the ABD area. We are also setting up RRA (Resident to Resident Aggression) facilities and MCA facilities for collection facilities and rent ling plants for organic and neat wastes. These facilities we have implemented in both the market areas Chaliye and Paliyam besides other strategically important locations across the city.

Will enlighten us on to what capacity is the tourism factor of Kerala, contributing to the economic development of the state?

Kerala is known worldwide as the God’s Own Country for its beautiful scenic bounty and closeness with nature and thrives significantly on tourism. For the last 25 years we have promoted vividly about Kerala’s Tourism specific importance and have taken a special place in tourism fronts. As per statistics of last year, Kerala government earned significant revenue of Rs 36,000 crores from the tourism market, which is roughly around 10 to 11 percent of the state GDP and it is already employing about 1.5 million people of the state. The best thing about tourism is that it is a definite employment provider to the state economy and for the local people, and cannot be replaced by machines.  In that context, Kerala which is primarily known for eco-friendliness and nature conservation, tourism is the perfect industry that thrives here in prosperity. Adding on, as per statistics of the last year, about 1.67 crores tourist footfalls touched Kerala, which is about half the state’s population.