Varanasi to soon turn into a smart city

Written By DNA Web Team | Updated: Nov 29, 2014, 10:39 AM IST

Secretary of India's Urban Development ministry, Shankar Aggarwal

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency of Varanasi is drawing close to turn into a smart city, as urban development ministry laid out the plan of the ambitious project.

Prime Minister Modi, who was elected in May to represent Varanasi, has taken personal responsibility to upgrade the city into one of the first smart cities in India.

The organizers and businessmen who will be the part of the project were present at the 'seminar on intelligent cities'.

Secretary of India's Urban Development ministry, Shankar Aggarwal interacted with the people and officials involved with the ambitious project.

Aggarwal said a smart city may have diverse significance for different groups belonging to various fields.

"The definition of smart city differs from person to person. One can say that smart design is smart city or smartly deployment of a city can be considered as smart city. If utilities are put forward in a smarter way can be defined as a smart city. Assimilation of all the things makes a smart city. If there is growth of economic activates, improvement of quality of life, that is a smart city," he said.

Prime Minister Modi has a vision of building 100 'smart' cities in India

Meanwhile, Aggarwal said that they will engage each and every citizen of the state and take their suggestions regarding the development of their city.

"We have come up with a concept paper that is on our website. We have asked for suggestions from the people. After the suggestions are gathered, there will be work on citizens engagement, asking people their need and then will come up with a city development plan," said Aggarwal.