Smart City’s Efforts to Protect Environment by Adopting Concept of Sustainable Development

BHOPAL / In the race of rapid urbanization, protecting the environment for future generations is really a big challenge. But Gwalior Smart City Development Corporation (GSCDC) has been making efforts as a possible solution by adopting the concept of sustainable development in most of the infrastructure projects, running under it.

“We are making efforts to create a healthy and environmentally friendly atmosphere for the residents of the city by adopting the concept of sustainable development”, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the GSCDC, Jayati Singh told The Sun Today. “Several infrastructure projects are being run in the city under the GSCDC but we try that the pollutants emission should be least in quantity during the construction”, Jayati said.

The CEO informed that the GSCDC has tried to minimize the environmental damage and unnecessary use of resources because, it prioritized the conservation, preservation and restoration of heritage structures of the city, the smart city was trying to use these historic legacies in most of its projects.

She added that taking these historic structures under the smart city mission was not only restoring and conserving them but also making efforts to make them adaptive reuse along with protecting the environment. The possibility of emission of carbon is least during the restoration work of the historic structures while it is emitted much in the new constructions, she further added.

The CEO also said that in most of the projects, efforts had been made for environmental protection so that the city could attain the status of ‘green space’ as well as a clean and beautiful city.

The headquarters of the GSCDC and its Command Control Center is set up in the Motimahal built by the erstwhile Scindia rulers. Besides, Digital Museum at the Gorkhi building, Digital Library at Maharaja Bada are the main projects in an effort to protect the environment.

The remains of historic buildings have been made usable through these projects for present and future generations without harming the environment

An ancient style of construction has been adopted to restore the heritage buildings. Natural materials like jaggery, pulses, limestones, etc. are being used.

A public bike-sharing project is also being run by the GSCDC in which 500 bicycles are available and 50 docks are set up at the different places of the city.