Smart Lucknow paving way to be investment destination

Anil Garg

Uttar Pradesh is endowed with ample natural and human resources and it is also a State enriched with pilgrimage and tourism places. It is a State with immense possibilities for industrial development, says Anil Garg, Divisional Commissioner, Lucknow and Chairman, Lucknow Smart City Limited, in conversation with Arpit Gupta of Elets  News Network (ENN).

What are the expectations of the State Government from the Uttar Pradesh Investors Summit 2018?

Uttar Pradesh Investors Summit 2018 will be a big step towards furthering the growth of industrialisation in the State. The State is an attractive investment destination for entrepreneurs because of its large economic size and a huge market for the produced goods. The State Government is committed to provide all necessary facilities and creating a conducive atmosphere for the entrepreneurs by bringing in various investment friendly policies

In present times, law and order situation has got a positive quantum jump which is very important to create a conducive climate for the industrial growth. The State Government has taken positive initiatives to solve the problems of entrepreneurs and investors on a priority basis. The Uttar Pradesh Government has taken several positive decisions like online sactioning of building maps, e-tendering, e-office for ease of doing business. The State Government is also developing systems so that the entrepreneurs can get online industry related services like various sanctions, approvals and licences easily.

The State Government expects new industrial units to come in the State both from local entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs from outside the State. This will give boost to the economy and the development of the State and also bring more employment opportunities for the local population. To maximise the potential of the State, the government has launched One District – One product scheme recently. The products are selected district wise. All the endeavours would be to promote these products to make more emphasis on viable employment generation, optimum use of local resources and skills, empowering them with adequate finance, training, packaging and marketing tools. This is a going to be a game changer strategy to help local craft and industry cluster.

Lucknow is identified as a embroidery cluster with “chikankari” and “zari zardozi.” Export promotion is another area for growth and expansion with more value to the production. The State is the best performing in the field of exports amongst land locked States in the country.

Which sectors in Uttar Pradesh have good scope of investment? What potential do you see in Lucknow?

Uttar Pradesh with an agriculture dominated economy has vast scope for capital investment in food processing sector. Since Uttar Pradesh is home to one of the largest MSME base in the country, the State Government envisages to strengthen this sector in order to create mass employment opportunities. The major industries in the Lucknow division include aeronautics (HAL), automotives (Telco), IT (TCS), machine tools, distilleries, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology units, sugar industry, cement (Reliance), NTPC, chemicals and furniture. The Lucknow division has huge potential in the handicrafts sector particularly Chikan embroidery works. Some areas of export from Lucknow division are- Chikan works are exported to UAE and other countries in Middle East, automotive parts to UK, Australia and Europe, carpets from Sitapur to UK and USA.

Lucknow is home to a number of prominent educational and research organisations like Indian Institute of Management Lucknow (IIM), Indian Institute of Information Technology, Lucknow (IIIT), Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI), Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET), Dr Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University (RMNLU), Institute of Hotel Management, Lucknow (IHM), Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI), Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences and King George’s Medical University. IIT Kanpur is also nearby

. All these institutes give us a fair number of quality professionals required for the industrial units. We have ample amount of land bank. With a plethora of ITIs around, qualified technicians and labour is also available.

How is Smart City Lucknow moving ahead in smart governance and citizen services?

Lucknow is a Smart City in the making with its rapidly growing physical infrastructure like flyovers, ongoing metro rail network, expressways, outer ring roads, IT units, real estate development and city extensions along with rapidly growing social infrastructure like hospitals of big chains like Medanta and educational institutions. Smart and IT-enabled solutions are being embedded into existing parking terminals to reduce manual intervention. The benefits are multi fold ranging from transparency in operations (governance) to empowering citizens through mobile applications with information which shall aid in planning their trips within the city. The parking solution shall be integrated with variable messaging signs (VMS) which shall display information related to parking at various key junctions of the city.

This smart parking being implemented on Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode will be operational by mid April 2018 in three existing parking space namely Jhandewala Park, Dayanidhan park and Jhandi park. IT enablement of rest of the parking slots (on street/off street) shall be undertaken subsequently to bring the entire parking of the city under one umbrella to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the existing parking system of the city. Lucknow Smart City Limited has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to introduce Public Bike Sharing on PPP model.

This will provide bicycles on rent to promote non-motorised transport system which will be environment- friendly, help to reduce traffic congestion apart from giving convenience to riders. This will start in Gomtinagar area as a pilot project and later up scaled to entire Lucknow city. Lucknow Municipal Corporation is extending its citizen services through various delivery channels. Our objective is to use technology and build systems and solutions around it so as to manage, supervise and regularise city governance activities, using technology and smartphones so as to increase efficiency and effectiveness.

The work on making a mobile based application which will be having facility for interacting with public is in the final stages. Here the feedback and complaints of public will be available for the officers so that they can improve their services by course correction based on the feedbacks. The mobile application shall also have a officers module which shall empower the supervision of work within the Government. Various smart solutions like DRISHTI for smart surveillance, UP DIAL 100, control rooms of power sector, solid waste management, pollution levels indicators, plus various services of Municipal Corporation are working in the city. Lucknow Smart City is in the process of selecting a Master System Integrator who shall integrate all these various smart solutions under an integrated Control and Command Centre. This integrated Control and Command Centre will help in controlling and coordination of various city governance activities.

We have integrated grievances redressal system (IGRS) working in the State. IGRS is an integrated system for grievance redressal in Uttar Pradesh to achieve the goal of good governance using latest technology involving all stakeholders for quality and timely disposal of the complaints. Lucknow Smart City is creating a ‘Lucknow City Portal’ to map all city-specific assets (utility networks), social infrastructure like hotels, food joints, municipal zones, police stations, parks, toilets, government buildings, hospitals and educational institutions etc. The portal shall be accessible to the citizens and shall be interactive. Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation has introduced metro card for metro services. Lucknow Smart City Corporation Limited is helping LMRC to integrate this card with other services so that a single card can be used for to city bus services, parking services and other municipal services like payment of utility bills and property taxes. This card has provision for integrating additional 32 services. IT enablement of city bus services is being undertaken by Lucknow City Transport Services Limited. This initiative shall be complemented with smart bus queue shelters across the city. These smart bus shelters shall be equipped with GPS systems and shall have public information system display to inform the commuters about the city buses. The bus queue shelters shall also have appropriate surveillance system for the security of the commuters.

What initiatives have been undertaken by the Government towards heritage wealth of the ‘The City of Nawabs’?

State Archaeological Directorate has undertaken the restoration work of heritage monuments like Chattar Manzil, Lal Baradari, Darshan Vilas Kothi, Gulistan-e-Eram, Roshan-ud Dulah Kothi etc. Restoration of Lal Baradari has been already completed. The Smart City Special Purpose Vehicle will help in restoration and conservation of these heritage projects of culture department. Smart roads shall be developed within the heritage rich Qaiserbagh area of the city. The Qaiserbagh Chauraha which has heritage value shall be restored to depict the heritage value. Globe park-one of the parks in the Area Based Development area-is being developed as differently-abled friendly park. Other monuments in the city like Ambedkar park, Smarak Sthal etc are also being maintained and renovated by the Lucknow Development authority.

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