Two-Days National Conference on “Road Map for Smart Cities of Rajasthan” started at Geetanjali Institute of Technical Studies, Dabok. The key speaker Pratap Padode, Founder & Director, Smart Cities Council India Mumbai explained the logical extension of research work to pursue smart cities projects.

Pratap also explained the development of smart cities is a matter of mindset. Also the cities have a contribution of more than 60%in GDP and the population in these cities has risen up by double between a span of 2003 to 2017. He also said that for overall development of India smart city concept is an inspirational model. He  shared some of the options by which this concept can be implemented as use of bio-metric machines, recycling of water supply to industries, CCTV cameras to reduce crime, proper street lights, conversion of wastage into compost, e-governance mechanism, credit rating for finance records to be maintained as per the funds distributed etc. He also explained the importance of knowledge sharing and communication for development of smart cities.

The chief guest of the conference Prof. Dr. M.N. Patel, Former Vice-Chancellor Gujarat Technological University and Gujarat University, Prof. Chetan Vaidya, Director, School of Planning Govt. of India, New Delhi, Pratap Padode Founder & Director, Smart Cities Council India Mumbai, President J.P. Agarwal, Chairman Geetanjali Group, Prof. Dr. K.N. Sheth Director GITS, Kapil Agarwal Vice-Chairman Geetanjali Group, Finance Controller B.L. Jangid and Convener Prof. Rajeev Mathur took the blessings of Lord Saraswati and performed the ritual of lamp lightning to start the program.

Dr. M.N. Patel defined the smart city as comfort and convenience to civilians. Also he added to develop smart city we need to educate, train, awareness, and change of mindset, job provider and nurturing of ideas if given a platform for development of India as a whole and serve the purpose of the conference.

The key note speaker Prof. Chetan Vaidya discussed an overview of “Emerging Urban Agenda for India”. He also spoke about the four missions of central government as improvements of capacity building, imparting technical education, urban trends issues and way forward. He also said that the development needs to be sustainable and inclusive of economic, financial and environmental development as a whole. He also discussed about the five urban missions which includes AMRUT, Smart City, HRIDAY, Housing for All and Swachh Bharat Mission. He concluded his speech by giving a message for youth that they are fortunate enough to be in India as it’s the only country which will see lots of construction and development work and had given three key points for success mantra as passion, focus and hard work.

J.P. Agarwal had appreciated the vision of smart city of Honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji. He also said that for such developments many visionary persons are necessary.

In the beginning of the conference Dr. K.N. Sheth had welcomed all the guests and was feeling privileged to be a part of such conference as the experts views will help in development of Udaipur as a smart city. He also informed that GITS is intended to set-up centre of excellence for smart city development and also it will establish smart city sensor labs. It will design and impart training program to municipal officials as how to implement smart technologies.

The technical session’s first part included speeches on Smart Cities-Planning by Pankaj Gupta, Dr. Indu Rao, Dr. Sejal Patel & Dr. Debasis Sanjib Sarkar. The second session was about paper presentation by Dr. Manish Verma & Prof. Rajeev Mathur, Dr. P C Bapna & Dr. V R Raghuveer and Hemant Sahu & Vishnu Agarwal. The anchoring was done by Anjali Dhabhai and vote of thanks was given by Dr. Radha Choudhary.