Britain is providing assistance to three Indian cities — Pune, Amravati, and Indore — in developmental efforts, spending 10 million pounds.
The partnership between the two countries goes back to 2015 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Britain.
“UK is providing assistance to three Indian cities namely Pune (Maharashtra), Amravati (Telangana) and Indore (Madhya Pradesh). We have also started working with the Chandigarh Administration in the area of waste management since last financial year,” said Javaid Malla, Energy & Low Carbon Adviser,British Deputy High Commission.
He was speaking in the International Experience of Smart Cities’ session of the Smart City Conclave, Chandigarh, held on July 28-29. The Conclave was organised by Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh in association with Elets Technomedia Private Limited, a technology and media research company.
According to Malla, in the next 20 years, there will be more than 350 million people living in the Indian cities. This is equivalent to the total population of United States of India.
To tackle this rapid urbanisation,”Britain is offering Smart Transport, Waste and Water Management, Smart Metering, Data Analytics, Environment and other solutions to India.”
While sharing his vision on Smart Cities Mission, he revealed that the concept of Bristol Green City is shared on an open platform so that other cities can benefit from them.
“A lab is being created in Manchester, UK where anybody can come and demontsrate what they have to offer in terms of SmartCities Mussion,” he added.
Among many projects which UK is supporting in India, prominent ones are the Bengaluru International Airport, the terminal 3 of the IGI Airport, Delhi, Delhi Metro Rail project, the Kolkata International Airport, the Bandra-Worli sea link, the Hyderabad Metro project etc.