The strategic blueprint for Vizag was developed based upon the City’s SWOT analysis, Citizen input in terms of their needs and aspiration, benchmarking of relevant case studies and review of planned, ongoing and proposed projects. The strategic focus of Vizag over next 5-10 years would include:
- Vizag to emerge stronger to withstand the 21st Century challenges of Climate change, and modern day man-made disasters such as flooding, air pollution and unforeseen events such as terrorism. The recent flooding in Chennai to drastic measures taken by Delhi to confront unhealthy air to last years hud hud cyclone in Vizag are strong indicators where climate change is real and Vizag will become resilient to address such challenges.
- Vizag to emerge as a healthy and sustainable city where health of the citizens is of primary importance. Considering health statistics of Vizag citizens that result in high diabetic cases, hyper-tension and high vehicle growth rate of 9% annually that result in air pollution – The city will grow towards a more healthier and sustainable growth address these issues by creating a more walkable, bike friendly and oBased upon the health statistics of vizag citizens where 34% adults have BMI index greater than required, higher diabetes rate, lifestyle choices etc,
- Vizag to emerge as a Vibrant city where technology will enable enhancement in governance, providing the citizens real time information while giving them tools to make daily choices. A vibrant Vizag will tap into its tourism potential building upon its beachfront and natural resources.
Vision and Goals
Vision Statement: A Resilient and Healthy Metropolis for PEOPLE. The city of destination is envisioned to become a leader in sustainability, healthy living, equality and innovation
Goals:
Safe and healthy City
A Sustainable City
A Dynamic City
A Connected & Green City
An Equitable City
A Resilient City
Citizen engagement Process
Extensive citizen engagement process was conducted to gather feedback. This included circulating hard copy survey forms - door to door; Use of social media to spread awareness and gather feedback; Online portal such as Mygov.in and www.yourvoiceyourvizag.com; Whatssapp and SMS messaging; focus group meetings; kiosks in multiple public locations throughout the city; banners & displays throughout the city; radio, TV announcements; audio mounted vans spreading awareness.
During round 1 of citizen engagement 4,00,000 lakh responses were received. Round 2 around
1,65,000 people polled for their priorities
PAN City Initiative
Taking into account the citizen input, global concern on climate change and climate resiliency our approach gives due consideration to ‘Resiliency’ in a city such that climate related challenges are adequately addressed in order to minimize the loss of life and damage to city infrastructure.
Health and Wellbeing of ‘PEOPLE’ has been given due importance.
In order that extreme climate events do not disrupt the lives of the Citizens due to failure of service delivery, our Pan-City proposal focuses on ‘Disaster Management & preparedness. Focusing on “doing more with less”, our PAN city initiative builds upon the proposed infrastructure for disaster management and leverages this infrastructure to provide e-governance. Hence our PAN city proposal includes “Disaster Management & preparedness and E-governance”.
Area Based Development
Three sites were identified for area based development based upon citizen input. Through polling by citizens, area that achieved maximum votes is selected for Area based development. The selected area includes areas around R.K. Beach and upto Waltair main road and is around 790 acres. This includes resident population as well visitors coming from the city, the region and the world. Making such an area smart would be an ideal demonstration project to showcase the citizens and tourist alike.
Area based smart solutions builds upon the ongoing initiatives within the city, such as speed limit cap, vehicle free zones initiatives by GVMC and Andhra university, beach front restoration project to enhance tourism potential etc. Also, the area wide strategies are inspired from a local neighbourhood of Kirlampudi that has taken many smart initiative to enhance their neighbourhood. Similarly the area-wide idea is to serve as a test bed for smart city initiatives for brown field cities like Visakhapatnam. The primary objective is to identify locally relevant smart city initiatives and technologies that could yield measurable benefits. With a focus on “Prevention is better than cure” the prominent projects include:
- Reduction in the overall speed of Vehicles to 25 km/hr
- Promoting bicycle highways as in Copenhagen
- Introducing silent zones – around schools and , medical facilities
- Retrofitting existing parks (VUDA PARK) and addition of sports facilities for Children and adults
- 24x7 pollution monitoring for corrective action
- Transitioning diesel operated auto-rickshaws to E-rickshaws over time.
- Provision of road side trees and landscape for better experience
- Pedestrian signage and way-finding
- Underground Electric Wiring
- Shore Protection along Beach Road
- 24 x 7 Water Supply
- Underground Drainage
- Recycled Water Supply
- Storm Water & Road Side Drains
- Solid Waste Management
- Public Bike Sharing
- Adaptive re-use of Rajiv Gandhi Smruti bhawan as Convention Centre
- Smart Signalling & Traffic Surveillance
- Modernizing of GVMC Schools with science labs/Computer facilities
- Foot Path Improvement
- Smart Metering for Electricity
- Housing for all
- Provision of Public Toilets along with Bus-Stops to provide better facilities
- Multi-use & Multi level car parking
- Solar Roof Top
Implementation Strategies
GVMC initiated the discussions with various Central and State Government ministries, departments and other agencies to explore their programs and policies which could be potentially tapped by the city. This understanding helped the team to arrange additional funds to the tune of Rs. 800 crore in addition to the Rs. 500 crore from Government of India and another Rs. 500 crore from Government of Andhra Pradesh. Similarly, appetite of the private sector for the smart city projects was also evaluated and it was proposed to mop up an additional funds of around 120 crore from private sector under different projects to be implemented on different PPP modes. Thus, GVMC was able to put up a strong and a robust financial and implementation framework which involved different agencies and private sector to implement the identified projects under smart city program.