At least seven km of roads in the central business district area of Bengaluru will be developed as ‘Smart SURE’ roads, a terminology coined by the civic corporation to refer to streets that will have IoT enabled solutions for citizens. The high streets in the vicinity of Vidhana Soudha including MG Road, Brigade Road and Commercial Street will be covered under this plan.
These roads will have 50 smart card-enabled public bicycle sharing points, 30 e-rickshaw stands, 35 e-toilets, water ATMs, 420 sensor-based smart dustbins and 50 designated vending kiosks -all of which will be connected to 1,250 smart telecom towers that will double as street light poles. Not to mention, these roads will also have wi-fi connectivity.
This futuristic idea is part of a Rs 2,090-crore plan to make Bengaluru a smart city. It was only last month that Bengaluru was shortlisted under the Smart Cities Mission in what was the BBMP’s third attempt to get India’s IT capital included in Prime Minister Modi’s pet project.
Authorities have chosen 21.8 sqkm of the city’s core area comprising the historic Pete and Cantonment with old markets and commercial hubs of MG Road, Brigade Road, Chickpet, Avenue road and Commercial Street under Area-Based Development (ABD), which will get Rs 1,166 crore, a lion share, in the Smart City project.
By Baishakhi Dutta
