Maharashtra Government to hold Vikas Parishads to boost Smart City campaign

To engage public participation for prioritising works to be taken up for the ambitious ‘Smart City’ campaign, state ministers will soon hold ‘Vikas Parishads’ in urban agglomerations selected by the Central government under the flagship scheme.

The Narendra Modi-led government has included 10 cities in Maharashtra, namely Mumbai, Pune, Navi Mumbai, Nashik, Thane, Amravati, Solapur, Nagpur, Kalyan-Dombivali and Aurangabad among the other 98 cities from across the country in the ‘Smart City' programme.

These Vikas Parishads will help fix priorities for works to be taken up under campaign. “As part of this programme, we will hold a public dialogue with people and make presentations on work done by us in our first year in office,” said finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar.

He added that initially, this would be done in the 10 smart cities beginning from poll-bound Kalyan- Dombivali and would be later expanded to other areas as well.

This will be held under the banner of BJP and will be attended by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, ministers and local MPs and MLAs. “Otherwise, people have no opportunity to speak out and put forth their ideas,” said Mungantiwar, adding that when he had held a ‘vikas parishad’ in Chandrapur on August 28, an architect from the city who was based in the Gulf, had flown down to give his inputs about city planning and road construction. Other suggestions which had come forth were those of traffic control and conservation of wells.

“The primary needs of the people are drinking water, efficient public transport, proper cleanliness and sanitation, electricity and roads,” said Mungantiwar.