None of the smart cities of Rajasthan could make it to the Smart City Expo India awards on Thursday. Bhubaneshwar was awarded the first prize in ‘The City’ category, while Indore received ‘Special Mention Award’. Jaipur withdrew from the competition as the event was hosted by Jaipur Development Authority (JDA). While rest of Rajasthan cities were left way behind by their Indian counterparts. The awards were declared on second day of the event on Thursday in seven categories.
Development authorities in Jaipur though maintains that the city remains among the top developing smart cities. “It was to avoid conflict of interest that Jaipur had not applied at the event awards,” said Jaipur development commissioner Vaibhav Galariya. “The city, however, is far ahead of other smart cities in ventures like establishment of centralised command center,” he added.
Jaipur is included among the government of India’s smart city mission and is the first CISCO ‘lighthouse’ city of South Asia. The city had made to the top six among 600 global cities at the World Smart City Expo at Barcelona, Spain last year. It is in partnership with promoters of the World Smart City Expo that Jaipur Development Authority has host the three day international smart city expo at Jaipur.
The event is envisaged to promote city’s advancement towards smart city on global map. In the direction of sharing experience local authorities took delegation of international smart city experts for a tour of Dravyawati riverfront project.
