Cyclist display skills at “Open Street Campaign” in Kohima on August 15. (Morung Photo)
Our Correspondent
Kohima | August 16
The Kohima Smart City Development Limited (KSCDL) organized “Open Street Campaign” in commemoration of Independence Day celebration on August 15 at Old NST, Kohima.
It was marked by Zumba, dance, music, open quiz, open art and interview.
Ingenious activities were led by Yhunchilo Khing, Sr Manager, Planning Division, KSCDL while Zumba session was led by Avisa John. Kohima Municipal Council (KMC) Administrator, T Lanusenla Longkumer was also present at the programme.
Speaking on the occasion, KSCDL Chief Executive Officer, Er K Theunuo said that after the inception of Smart cities mission, the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, Government of India has launched several initiatives for smart cities in India to take part in the form of challenges and competitions. 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.
He said that C4C is an initiative to inspire and support cities to implement cycling friendly initiative, to encourage cities to experiment cycling and build confidence for city level scale up with the goal to learn, rather than to perfection.
“This challenge has prepared cities to implement cycling friendly initiative 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 also said that the main objective of Kohima smart city taking part in C4C was to introduce friendly non-motorised vehicles in the city wherein encouraging citizens to take up cycling as an alternate mode of transportation.
CEO said that Kohima Smart City has been selected as one of the top 11 cities and bagged Rs100 lakh cash award in this challenge.
Streets for People challenge
Streets for People (S4P) challenge is to share space especially for underutilized spaces on the streets including planning and paradigm shift of planning not for cars but for people has been introduced, he said.
In this challenge, Er Theunuo said that Kohima Smart City bagged Rs.50 lakh cash award being the 1st position amongst the top 11 cities displaying its creative street spaces for other cities to learn and replicate.
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.
Nurturing Neighbourhood challenge
He said that Nurturing Neighbourhood Challenge (NNC) is another Smart city challenge targeted to children of 5 years and below and their care givers. The main purpose of this challenge is urban planning towards facilities for children, play space in public area, city council services for children's care givers of ages, gender and physically challenged groups. For this initiative, activities like place making and pop-ups for children were identified at Bus stoppage, schools, parks and available space in few municipal wards in Kohima.
In this challenge, Kohima was placed in the top 11 position.
With the experienced gained and citizens response to the low cost and quick interventions in the stage-01, Kohima Smart city aims to convert the temporary interventions into permanent structures in stage-02 of these challenges with the vision to create a safe, resilient and healthy streets and cycling facilities for the citizens, he said.
“It is the dream and vision of Kohima Smart City to make Kohima city a cycling friendly city and its street for the people,” said Er Theunuo.
