2 More Awards For Socially Smart Bhubaneswar; Ranked 2nd In Social Aspects Category

Bhubaneswar: Odisha’s capital city on Friday bagged two more awards in the India Smart City Awards Contest (IASC) run by Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) during the sixth anniversary celebration of Smart City Mission, AMRUT and PMAY (Urban).

Commonly called IASC-2020, the winners were chosen from as many as 100 Smart Cities. The awards were declared this afternoon by MoHUA in New Delhi.

Bhubaneswar continued its eminence as a leading Smart City in the country as the Temple City was recognized for two major BSCL projects — Socially Smart Bhubaneswar and city’s unified citizen service portal Bhubaneswar.Me — in Social Aspects and Governance categories.

Socially Smart Bhubaneswar was adjudged second best in Social Aspects category and Bhubaneswar.Me was ranked third under Governance category.

Tirupati and Tumakuru were rated first and third respectively in Special Projects category, while Vadodora and Thane were adjudged first and second, respectively, under Governance category.

“We have achieved these awards with our innovations and ideas, and in future the city will come up with more such citizen-centric projects. The Smart City Project works will be expedited and I hope in future we will win more such awards during Smart City Challenge,” said BSCL CEO Sanjay Kumar Singh.

‘People-centric programme for making Bhubaneswar a socially smart city’ is a joint collaborative initiative of BSCL and UNFPA, which takes cognizance of the needs of young people in the context of prosperity, safety equity and sustenance.

It aims to transform Bhubaneswar through improved infrastructure, technology, economic drive and quality of life for people and will contribute to achieving the SDG 11 (Sustainable cities and communities).

Bhubaneswar.me is part of city’s governance, with the city administration wanting to bring transparency through the initiative.

This initiative helps citizens achieve common service requirement with Bhubaneswar.me, which is a unified service portal which currently delivers 100-plus  citizen services from 16 government organizations divided in 9 broad categories of public amenities such as search for safe public transport, access of hi-speed WIFI system, citizen services, city events, city maps etc.