The United States will help the Mumbai region's development authority in preparing Request For Proposal (RFP) for Smart BKC (Bandra Kurla Complex) project. This was decided on Saturday after US Transport Secretary Anthony Foxx met Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) officials.
The United States will help the Mumbai region's development authority in preparing Request For Proposal (RFP) for Smart BKC (Bandra Kurla Complex) project. This was decided on Saturday after US Transport Secretary Anthony Foxx met Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) officials.
“Each Smart City has different needs. Smart BKC, a business district, will have its own requirements, which will be different from others. The US is eager to help the MMRDA in the project,” said Sanjay Sethi, Additional Metropolitan Commissioner, MMRDA.
MMRDA plans to come out with an RFP for Smart BKC in a month or so. A RFP is a solicitation for business proposals from suppliers for a product or service, which prescribes the requirements and sets standards for the product/service. On the successful implementation of Smart BKC, the next areas to be developed as smart cities would be Wadala and Kalyan.
Foxx and MMRDA officials also held discussions on mass transit systems and strategies to implement metro projects. They also deliberated on the requirement of smart cities and the accruing benefits in the wake of advancing technology.
“The upcoming newer modes of transport such as metro, light rail transit, monorail demand more knowledge and expertise in planning, implementation and operations,” said UPS Madan, Metropolitan Commissioner, MMRDA. “In order to effectively and economically implement such capital-intensive projects, it is necessary to understand through appraisal and evaluation of such projects, factors contributing to time and cost over runs, to arrive at the right implementation strategies. The interaction dealt with all such issues.”
There will also be sharing of information and knowledge between the two countries on how to deal with cost containment for mass transit projects planned for the Mumbai Metropolitan Region.
The interaction was a part of the Memorandum of Co-operation (MoC) signed between the US' Federal Transit Authority (FTA) and the Government of Maharashtra to work together in the field of public transportation.
A day earlier, on Friday, Foxx told the media that safety standards for the automobile industry in the US are much higher, which is why vehicles with enhanced safety features are available there, but probably not in India. Foxx explained that in the coming years, the US will work with India to make cars as safe as possible apart from working on shaping human behaviour to reduce total number of road accidents.
When asked why US car manufacturers provide more safety features in cars available in the US as compared to India, he said: “In the US, we have set the bar (for safety standards) really high. As a result, manufacturers have to have a lot of safety features. In 1960, we reduced vehicular accidents by 80%.”
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