As the development works under Smart City Mission are gaining pace in Agartala, its performance has ranked top amongst 10 Smart Cities in the North Eastern Region.
The success of Agartala Smart City in speeding up the project sanctioning, tendering and implementation has been appreciated by the Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs during the review of the North Eastern States on July 24, 2020.
The review meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar, Secretary Urban Development Kiran Gitte and CEO of Agartala Smart City project Dr. Shailesh Yadav.
Agartala Smart City has taken up 80 Projects with cost of Rs 1479 cr for overall development of Capital City. Till July 2020, 100% projects have been tendered by the Smart City Mission team. Work orders have been issued for 54 per cent value of the projects taken up so far. Centre Government has sanctioned 196 Crores, while the State Government has released 50 Crores to the Agartala Smart City Limited. Till date, total Rs 172 cr have been spent under the project. To expedite the work implementation, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs have released additional 49 Crores to Agartala Smart City in July 2020.
As per the instructions of Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, one the first projects taken up by Agartala Smart City Mission was to reduce the water stagnation problem in the Central city during monsoon. While drain constructions are going on at rapid pace, the installation of 3 new pumps is completed, capacity of 4 pumps has been increased, diesel pumps are being installed at 4 locations so that these would work even if power is cut off and new pumps will be installed in Kalyani and Grandoise Club area. These measures have certainly helped in reducing flooding during the current monsoon season. Integrated Command and Control Centre with the network of CCTV cameras has been put to use for Live monitoring of flood works in Agartala City. Recently, the Chief Minister visited the ICCC office at Indranagar and personally monitored the flood control measures using high technology intervention.
Other projects coming up under Agartala Smart City are widening of 14 important roads in Agartala City, four laning of Agartala Airport, development of Howrah river bank and Ujjayanta Palace avenue. As per Smart City rankings released in July 2020, Agartala is ranked at 56th place amongst 100 smart cities in the country, the other North Eastern cities are ranked as – Namchi , Sikkim (59), Aizwal, Mizoram (75), Kohima, Nagaland (79), Gangtok, Sikkim (80), Guwahati, Assam (83), Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh (89), Shillong, Meghalaya (92), Imphal, Manipur (93) and Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh (98).
