THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Corporation is yet to receive approval to appoint international consultants for the proposed smart city project. According to officials, these consultants are a pre-requisite to prepare competitive proposals for the ambitious project.
Flash mobs, opinion boxes seeking public’s view
Currently, the Corporation has devised various measures to gather public opinion, an exercise that could fetch up to 30 percentage grade during the proposal evaluation. With the ward level meetings in 100 wards at the final stages of completion, the Corporation is launching a range of activities aimed at eliciting responses from the public in the next one week. Opinion boxes, flash mobs, mass runs, road shows, a kiosk for conducting surveys etc will be used for this purpose.
Opinion boxes will be kept in 30 locations in the city from Friday. The public can drop their suggestions to boost the city in these boxes. Inauguration of boxes will be held at Statue on Friday at 11.30 am. A painting competition will be held at Museum Radio park on October 16 at 10 am. The competitions will be held for lower primary, upper primary, high school, higher secondary students. General public, college and higher secondary school students can submit their essay on the topic ‘Thiruvananthapuram of my dreams’ at the Smart City Cell set up at the Corporation by October 20. The writings should not cross 1000 words. Those who write well will be awarded by the Mayor.
Ward level meetings have so far attracted good responses from public with active participation from citizens including writers, environmentalists. The procedures are expected to conclude by October 14. This will be followed by meeting of experts from various fields such as waste management, transport, health, sanitation, education, IT, security, heritage etc. The expert’s meeting will conclude by October 22.
National Service Scheme volunteers, student union leaders have also been roped in to collect suggestions from college students on the Smart City proposal. 150 selected volunteers were given training on the smart city project at the Corporation on October 5.
These volunteers are part of the campaign, aimed at ensuring mass participation in the preparation of the Smart City proposal and have been assigned to collect suggestions from college students.