The capital city has received this award for its community mobilisation and community development, which forms a part of the Socially Smart programme. The socially Smart programme is a joint collaboration of Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which has a vision of Bhubaneswar as a smart city where there will be a special focus on the needs of young people, security of girls and women, especially in slum areas.
Until now, under the Socially Smart programme, various safety audits have been held in different slums of Bhubaneswar, 320 adolescent girls from eight slums of Bhubaneswar Town Centre District (BTCD) area have been given training on self-defence to empower them, 22 slums around Bhubaneswar got the status of Open Defecation Free under this initiative through the help of selected peer leaders and community members.
It can be mentioned here that the Smart City Proposal of Bhubaneswar has also got a unique agenda of making the city child-friendly.
Soon after Bhubaneswar received this award, there was a tweet from the official Twitter account of Smart City Expo India, Jaipur 2018, which mentioned, “Our first Smart City Award category is the ‘Best City’ Award. Congratulations to the winner, Bhubaneswar Smart City for transforming itself through using various initiatives for all of its people. SmartCityExpoIndia”
Interestingly, this is the first time in the country that such an event has been organised. Inaugurated by the Vice President of India, Venkaiah Naidu, the event got flagged off on Wednesday.
Keeping up with the mission of Smart City Expo India event to showcase innovation in the space of Smart cities globally, Bhubaneswar has well deserved the honour of this award, as it has been proving its consistent global presence as a promising Smart City.
The objective of this three days long expo is to have discussions among different experts and groups to utilize benefits of new technology, town planning, capacity management, challenges before socio-economic development and development of networking in the Smart City sector.
Besides the keynote addresses, the event also has many interesting sessions on themes like Smart Destinations, Innovation, Technology and Digital Governance, The Future of Mobility and Urban Planning, Social Development, Clean Tech and Circular Economy and Smart Cities Platform Award.
Ranked first in the Government of India’s Smart City Challenge by making it to the final list for the World Smart City Awards in 2016 held at Barcelona, Bhubaneswar has been playing a pivotal role in redefining and demystifying the concept of the smart cities movement in developing countries.
Besides this award, Bhubaneswar’s holistic and socially smart strategy has been a recipient of several other accolades for its implementation, including the award for securing the 32nd rank among the top 50 best Smart Cities of the world in July 2018, the 2016 Award of Merit in the international development category by the Canadian Institute of Planners and then Pierre L’Enfant International Planning Excellence Award 2017 by the American Planning Association.
Prasanta Patnaik