Smart City - Delhi On Way to be Smart City, Spain to Partner

Capital City - Delhi is on its way to be a smart city. A nine mem­ber del­eg­a­tion from Spain, led by Spanish Minister of State for Trade Jaime Garcia-Legaz Ponce had a detailed meet­ing with the Indian author­it­ies, dur­ing the week gone by, to dis­cuss the cre­ation of Delhi into a ‘Smart city’ with the help & assist­ance of experts from Spain. The Indian min­is­ter for Urban devel­op­ment Mr. M Venkaiah Naidu later con­firmed that they two del­eg­a­tions have reached an under­stand­ing the this effect.
This is fur­ther to the con­firm­a­tion of par­ti­cip­a­tion of the US experts for the devel­op­ment of Allahabad, Ajmer & Vishakhpatnam. Germany too has shown interest to contribute.
Ramesh Menon of Certes, an expert on the smart cit­ies avers that “this latest move makes ample sense to both sides, con­sid­er­ing the rel­at­ive slow down in the European eco­nomy, and the Indian apetite for invest­ments yield­ing higher returns.” The Spanish Ambassador in India, Gustavo de Aristegui Gonzalez said that it was an ‘excit­ing oppor­tun­ity’ for his coun­try to strengthen bilat­eral co-operation. The MoU between the two entit­ies would ini­ti­ate spe­cial focus for evolving the Delhi mas­ter plan for a ‘Smarter Delhi’.

Mr. Balvinder Kumar, IAS, the VC-DDA has already con­firmed that the DDA has iden­ti­fied the land par­cels to develop a green­field smart city, wherein Madrid would lend tech­nical expert­ise. It may also be recalled that the DDA has floated an RFP in the pre­ced­ing months seek­ing an advisor to DDA to soli­cit for­eign expert­ise. According to Mr. Naidu the UD min­is­ter, post the for­mu­la­tion of the mas­ter plan, Pan city & regional plans would be under­taken by the Spanish agencies.
Ramesh Menon also men­tioned that a French del­eg­a­tion, includ­ing Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Sustainable Development & Energy Minister Segolene Royal also vis­ited the city for con­sulta­tions with Indian author­it­ies. Their areas of interest seems the clean energy ini­ti­at­ive & sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. They would also con­trib­ute towards the devel­op­ment of smart cit­ies & trans­port­a­tion infrastructure

Source:

Delhimasterplan.com