The Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Limited (IPSCDL) has been in the eye of storm for their illogical facilities planned for the Panjim Smart City.
What is shocking is that the IPSCDL team had approached a Swedish Company, which implemented Smart City in Sweden, for some lessons. But when they returned they had some other ideas for implementation – or maybe a brain fade moment.
The tiny state of Goa, which is on a virtual financial crisis after the mining ban and drop in tourist arrivals is spending almost Rs 1800 cr on making its capital city – Panjim, a Smart City.
The Panjim Smart City is being implemented with partial funding from the Central government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
While the Centre will fund Rs 500 cr, the State will spend Rs 1,300-plus for the completion of Panaji Smart City.
The Smart City officials, Chief Executive Officer Swayandipta Pal Chowdhary and the former chairman Sidharth Kuncalienker took lessons from the Swedish Company for implementation of Smart City Scheme, as done by many other states in the country.
Sources revealed that Swayandipta Pal Chowdhary visited Sweden twice to get lesson from IVL, the Swedish Environmental Research Institute, which implemented Sweden Smart City and helping other countries in implementation of Smart City projects. Mind you, the IPSCDL spent lakhs for the visit to Sweden.
However, what we see in Panjim is totally different from what Sweden has planned in its Smart City.
Unlike the much fancied Rs 4.7 lakhs CCTV camera’s or Rs 22 cr monitoring Centre, the Swedes have different perception altogether about Smart City.
Ostem Ekegren, Chairman of IVL, which is implementing Smart City in Sweden and training many other countries, says that Smart City means “Sustainable Development and making things easier”.
The Swedes believe the Smart City funds could be used for improving the air quality, better mobility, social sustainability, urban planning and more importantly in waste management.
However, the city fathers who visited Sweden for special training failed to understand the meaning of Smart City and instead thought of some fancy control room, CCTVs, mangroves platform, cycling tracks etc.
Speaking to Herald, Ostem Ekegren said he had a good meeting with Swayandipta, who is the CEO for IPSCDL, but he does not know what was finally implemented.
When pointed out about the CCTVs, he said, “well he had discussed this in the meeting but we do not know. Frankly, we did not recommend this kind of infrastructure for a Smart City.”
He said the first meeting with the CEO was brief while the second one was in detail.
“We discussed various things about Smart City development and showed keen interest,” he said adding “finally we don’t know what they actually did.”
Ostem said the story of smart cities Sweden began in 2016 with the aim to export solution within environmental technology and mobility.
“In 2018, the initiative expanded to include urban planning digitalization and social sustainability. Almost, 3,600 visitors from 43 different countries have visited us for solutions,” he said.
He said the Swedes have different perspective when it comes to Smart City.
In order to build smart and sustainable cities, many different processes and functions need to harmonize with each other. Still, each building block is complex enough in itself, he said.
