Bhubaneswar: Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra, who is on a two-day Odisha tour, Friday visited various projects of the Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) and expressed his happiness over the implementation of the technology-driven Smart Parking System on Smart Janpath.
He also interacted with the members of the transgender community, who are managing the Smart Parking on Janpath.
While during the drive through between the State Secretariat and Smart Janpath, he also saw the multi-level car parking near Rajmahal Square.
Taking a keen interest at the functioning of the Smart Parking System, the MoHUA Secretary asked several questions to the transgender community members, who explained how they are operating and how all of it is integrated with the Bhubaneswar Operations Centre, the temporary Intelligent City Operations and Management Centre (ICOMC), at the Smart City Office.
Later, talking to media persons, he said, “The work being done on ground is very good, but needs to be scaled up and perfected to greater lengths. The Smart Janpath Project is a great intervention with transgender community managing the parking lots. Citizens can now know the parking slots availability through their smart phones and pay for it online.’’
He, however, stressed that outreach programmes are the need of the hour for better citizens’ involvement.
Smart City Mission is focused on Ease of Doing Business and improving livability. He asserted that BSCL is working on multiple projects and it is an experimental ground for learning. The positive learning shall be replicated and that we are all currently in the learning process of building a sustainable future.’
During the Smart Janpath visit of the MoHUA Secretary, Principal Secretary Housing and Urban Development Department G Mathivathanan, MD and CEO Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited Sanjay Kumar Singh, Deputy Commissioner BMC Srimant Mishra and General Manager Smart City Kamaljit Das were present, among other officials of Smart City and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation.
The Parking Management System involves implementation of a centralized software application for monitoring and management of overall parking status in the city through on-street parking sensors installed at the parking lots for real-time monitoring of the parking lot occupancy.
The Parking management system also includes the Mo-Parking App for facilitating citizens to view the real-time availability of parking lots and pre- booking the same through online payment options. Online hand-held PoS devices are also provisioned under this system for on-spot payment of parking fees through credit / debit cards.
The management of Parking for the Smart Janpath stretch is entrusted to a transgender community in Bhubaneswar to reinforce social equity in the city by supporting their livelihood and bringing them to the mainstream.
The transgender community currently managing parking on the Smart Janpath have been imparted with necessary training and provided with handholding support to operate the Parking Management System.
The Parking Management System is integrated with payment gateway to facilitate citizens pre-book a parking spot and pay online for the same. The online hand-held PoS devices used for on-spot collection of parking fees supports all types of credit /debit card payments along with cash transactions.
In the afternoon he also visited Kala Bhoomi, the art and craft museum in Pokhariput and had a glimpse over the craft traditions of the State.
Director Municipal Administration Sangramjit Nayak, Member Secretary SIDAC Sisir Kumar Rath and Handicrafts Promotion Officer of Kala Bhoomi Manas Ranjan Sethi were present among others.