NDMC approves 3D mapping for smart city

NEW DELHI: New Delhi Municipal Council will soon start three-dimensional mapping of its areas as part of its smart city project. Aimed at facilitating urban planning and ensuring better civic services, the project was announced during the civic body's annual budget presentation for the financial year 2015-16 on Wednesday.

"The project will help us accurately identify our services, infrastructure and green areas. This information will be used by us while planning new development projects," said NDMC chairperson Jalaj Shrivastava.

Work on the project will start soon. "We will map everything, from trees to sewer lines. This will give us an idea of the existing infrastructure. So, while planning a parking project or a complex, we can easily know whether it is feasible or not just by checking the map. If there are important water or sewer lines at the site, we can plan our project accordingly," an NDMC official said.

The civic agency will hire a private firm to execute the project. A few years ago, the civic agency had begun a similar project, but it couldn't be completed due to technical issues. "We will start from scratch. We are in the process of finalizing the plan," said an official.

This year, the civic agency plans to execute all projects it has conceived in the past one year to make Lutyens' Delhi a smart city. "We have been working on the smart city project for a while now and have conceived several sub-projects on Wi-Fi connectivity, intelligent parking system and waste-to-energy conversion. These will be implemented soon," said Shrivastava.

Apart from its smart city project, the civic agency will focus on women's empowerment. For this, it plans to start a dedicated cab service for women passengers which will be run by women. As a pilot project, the civic agency will start the service with women drivers trained at its own Women Technical Institute. It also plans to deploy women as security personnel in parks and gardens. The civic agency will train women for the job.

Though its Khan Market redevelopment project is yet to get started, the civic agency plans to redevelop eight of its markets in this financial year. While the civic agency presented a surplus budget of Rs 27.2 crore, Shrivastava said he will ask the Delhi government to pay in lieu of the power subsidy. "It is the government's decision to give subsidy in electricity, so we will ask it for funds," Shrivastava said.