GIZ supports Odisha for sustainable urban development

BHUBANESWAR: To implement sustainable urban development –Smart Cities, Climate Smart Cities and adoption for climate change in cities, the Odisha government signed a note of technical cooperation with the Government of Germany.

The note was signed in the presence of Pratap Jena, Housing and Urban Development Minister. Prem Kumar, Housing and Urban Development special secretary, Surath Chandra Mallick, Additional Commissioner, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, Saroj Kumar Swain, General Manager, Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited, and Tanja Feldmann, Project Director, Sustainable Urban Development Cluster, GIZ India, signed the note of technical cooperation.

The aforementioned project aims to improvise the process of planning and implementing sustainable and integrated urban development solutions, develop programs and policies for climate resilient urban systems and develop ICT based solutions for ease of governance.

The project, all over, will include development and application of concepts for sustainable urban development regarding the provisioning of urban basic services and housing in three selected smart cities which is Bhubaneswar (Odisha), Kochi (Kerala) and Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu).

The German projects are expected to run until December 2021 and contribution through all the three projects combined is €16.4 million (INR 127 crore approximately). Under the Indo-German Development Cooperation, the projects aim to support ‘mission Jaga’ and ‘mission Basudha’ in capacity building of various stakeholders within December 2019. Furthermore, one of the projects aims to develop ICT based tool for adaptation to urban flooding scenario in Bhubaneswar by January 2020.