Aasif Suhaf, Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir’s summer capital ‘Srinagar city’ is being given new look and developed under smart city project. The works will be completed before much important G20 meeting next month in Kashmir Valley.

Although the Srinagar is giving the ugly, rough look these days and people had to face lot of problems due to ongoing massive developmental works but officails said that once the works get completed by the end of this month, Srinagar will present new smart and lovely look with more facilities and clean environment.

Srinagar Smart City head Athar Aamir Khan said that ”Right now we have some 80 projects going on around Srinagar city, these projects are broadly based around 8 themes, the Jhelum Bund development. All the axis towards the river are being developed.”

“We hope to complete one side of the riverfront by the end of this month. Some heritage structures such as temples and shrines are also being restored. We are also starting a water transport facility. One Important thing we are doing is the geometric correction of the roads” he added.

Athat Aamir further said, “All the draining has been put underground. Our footpaths are 6 inches above the road surface. And every footpath has a proper tactile line in it which will guide the specially abled while they are walking on that. Entire portion of around 80 kms length, every inch has been made to the standard”.

Aamir said “The city like Srinagar has to be a walkable city, if people can’t walk near the Dal Lake, if people can’t walk around Lal chowk to shop, what kind of lal chowk are we talking about. We have heavily invested around the periphery of Dal Lake. We are making a walkway”.

Under the new developmental works, famous Dal Lake’s front is being revamped along the Foreshore Road of Dal Lake from Nishat to Naseem Bagh, including Pedestrian, Walkway, Cycle Track and Viewing Decks, and other projects.

Works on the redevelopment of footpaths on Boulevard Road is also taking place. Cycle lanes, Footpaths, and Parking Spaces, are being constructed and officails have directed the executing agencies to pace up the execution of works to complete them by the 15th of April without fail.

Divisional Commissioner Kashmir Vijay Kumar Biduri said that “the executing agencies are working day/night to complete the work on smart city project by the end of April, which is before the scheduled G20 meeting next month. People must be curious what is going to happen and how the city will look but we want to assure people that our city will look better till then we request people to bear with us with the little inconvenience they are facing due to ongoing works” he said.

The Project, which has a Rs 3000-crore odd budget, has Rs 2000 crores allotted for the line departments, which are working in convergence with Smart City Limited on various projects.  Smart City Limited on its own has a budget of around Rs 1000 crore.

Apart from the Area-Based Development programme, the Smart City project is also working on a few pan-city projects like the interventions in the IT-related sectors along with improving certain roads and urban mobility which includes the public transport facilities across the city.

As per the government of India’s Smart City scheme, the central government over five years would pay a selected city Rs 500 crore while the state/union territory would pay an equal amount within the same time frame.

With Srinagar receiving funding of around Rs 1000 crore from both sources, the other projects worth Rs 2000 crore are being done under convergence with line departments which anyhow would have taken up those works.