Under the centrally-funded Smart City Mission (SCM), authorities have proposed reviving cultural and commercial importance of the old city of the summer capital Srinagar.
The SCM focuses on the two basic components – the pan citydevelopment and area-based development.
Both the components are aimed to provide smart and innovativesolution to transform Srinagar into an “eco-friendly and resilient city.”
Under the area based development, 76 percent area will bedeveloped on modern lines, 19 percent will be developed as green field and fivepercent area will be redeveloped for specific purposes.
Some of the key areas of focus under the SCM are disastermanagement, urban mobility and waste management.
The urban mobility includes traffic regulation, zebracrossing on roads, intelligent traffic system and road widening.
Authorities have started work on these projects in the oldcity which is also known as the Downtown.
“Under the SCM, we aregoing to revive importance of the Downtown. The focus will be on highlightingculture and heritage of the city,” said Commissioner, Srinagar MunicipalCorporation, Khurshid Sanie.
He said the program envisages uplift of artisans and revivalof cottage, shawl and other craft industries.
“This will create job opportunities for local youth. YarkandSarai at Safa Kadal, which is situated on the banks of river Jhelum will beconverted into crafts museum,” he said.
The authorities will also provide soft loans to the locals todevelop portion of their residential houses for accommodations of tourists.
“Tourists will have an experience of Kashmiri culture andheritage by staying in Downtown. This way, we will have large number oftourists thronging the Downtown,” he said.
Under the SCM, the Old Court complex will be converted intothe hospitality sector. “However, the heritage buildings will remain untouchedand it will be preserved along with all other heritage buildings,” theCommissioner said.
He said development of the Srinagar city on modern lines willincrease job opportunities for local youth.
On 24 June 2017, in a major push for urban infrastructuredevelopment in Jammu and Kashmir, the twin capitals, Srinagar and Jammu wereincluded in the list of cities to be developed as “smart cities.”
The Smart City Mission which is aimed at improving basicurban infrastructure in cities was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi inJune 2015.
Under the program, each city is getting Rs 1,000 crorecentral funding for its comprehensive development and effective delivery ofpublic service.