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Our Correspondent
Kohima, Aug 15 (EMN): The Kohima Smart City Development Limited (KSDCL) celebrated Independence Day with a difference by organising an ‘Open street campaign’ at Old NST, which attended by the general public and school students.
Chief executive officer (CEO), KSCDL, Kezha Theunuo, addressed the event and highlighted the various activities of KSDCL and said that it is the dream and vision of KSDCL to make Kohima city a cycling-friendly city.
Theunuo informed that after the inception of smart cities mission, the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has launched several initiatives for smart cities in India to take part in the form of challenges and competitions.
He said among those initiatives, the India Cycle for Change (C4C) and the Streets for People (S4P) challenges were launched by the Ministry in the month of June and September 2020 respectively for Smart Cities to re-imagine streets as safe, happy and healthy public spaces, to support cities to implement and create cycling-friendly and walking-friendly streets in response to Covid-19 pandemic.
Cycle for Change (C4C) is an initiative to inspire and support cities to implement cycling-friendly initiatives, to encourage cities to experiment cycling and build confidence with the goal to learn. This challenge has prepared cities to implement cycling-friendly initiatives in response to challenges of Covid-19 and cycling was seen as a means of staying healthy-physically and mentally by the people during the pandemic, he said.
The CEO, KSCDL, pointed out that the main objective of Kohima smart city taking part in C4C is to introduce friendly non-motorised vehicles in the city thereby encouraging citizens to take up cycling as an alternate mode of transportation. Kohima Smart City was selected as one of the top 11 cities and bagged INR.100 lakhs cash award in this challenge.
Meanwhile, Theunuo said the S4P challenge is to share space, especially underutilized spaces on the streets through a paradigm shift in planning not for cars but primarily for people.
In this challenge, Kohima Smart City bagged INR.50 lakhs cash award emerging in the first position amongst the top 11 cities, by displaying its creative street spaces for other cities to learn and replicate, he said.
“Activities such as street design competitions, temporary place making for testing, observing public behaviors toward the change especially the walking group, setting up pop-ups as models and real time test designs,” he added.
Further he informed that Nurturing Neighbourhood challenge (NNC) is another Smart city challenge targeted for children of 5 years and below and that the main purpose of this challenge is urban planning towards facilities for children, play space in public area, city council services for children's caregivers of all ages, gender and physically challenged groups.
Zumba, cycle workshop, dance music, open quiz, open art and interview marked the celebration, which was moderated by Ruokuokhrienuo, IT Analyst, KSCDL.