Odisha CM inaugurates Bhubaneswar Operations Centre

Bhubaneswar: While the Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) is moving towards its smart goals, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday inaugurated the state-of-the-art Bhubaneswar Operations Centre (BOC), besides two other projects and laid the foundation stone for another two.

The Chief Minister inaugurated the command and control centre for the city and the new Smart City Office on the fifth floor of BMC-Bhawani Mall in Saheed Nagar.

He also dedicated the Smart Parks in Saheed Nagar and City-wide Solar Powered Adaptive Traffic Signal System at AG Square, to the citizens of the Temple City.

Along with inauguration of these three completed projects, the Chief Minister also laid the foundation stone for a Sensory Park for children with special needs, in Saheed Nagar and an Integrated Public Service Centre (IPSC) at Bapuji Nagar.

BHUBANESWAR OPERATIONS CENTRE

• The first-of-its-kind centralized command and control centre will monitor, operate, and control existing services of the city.
• The Adaptive Traffic Signal System, tracking of buses and municipal vehicles along with Grievance Redressal System is being operationalised at present from BOC.
• The operations centre is envisaged to be developed further in a manner to keep an eye on several functions like traffic management, incident management, city surveillance, emergency services and disaster management.
• The state-of-the-art centre includes a massive video wall of more than 80-foot length (with 16 x 2 configuration of 70-inch panels) and will be used to monitor the large volume of closed circuit television (CCTV) footage and highly sophisticated sensor data.
• It will provide a digital platform for integrating multiple city sub-systems of parking, public transport, and Common Payment Card along with Effective Emergency Response Management for the city.

SMART PARKS IN SAHEED NAGAR

• Six neighbourhood parks in Saheed Nagar area have been redesigned by Bhubaneswar Urban Knowledge Centre as interactive play spaces for children with several child-friendly smart features.
• Four of these colony parks, located on a single stretch, but separated with by-lanes, were taken up for re-development as a single active play cum activity space, especially for children and named Saheed Nagar Park. It has facilities like open-air art gallery, open-air amphitheatre, splash park, watchtower, kids play zone, half basketball court and Open Air Gym. It has four theme zones i.e. Get Creative, Get Rest, Get Smart and Get Wet.
• Similarly, the BDA-OMC Park in Saheed Nagar has been re-developed based on ‘Get Fit’ theme based on fitness with interactive play. The redesigned park will have special provisions, especially for kids and toddlers.
• The small Triangular Park has been redeveloped with tactful interventions making it as an easily accessible and safe green space for neighbourhood gatherings. Designed as ‘Get Green’ horticultural park, this tiny space has now turned into a beautiful green arena with adequate sitting space, the plaza for small community gatherings and ample space for meditation activities.

CITY-WIDE ADAPTIVE TRAFFIC SIGNAL CONTROL SYSTEM

• Technically called Solar Powered Adaptive Traffic Signal System, it is an intelligent and IT-based signalization of traffic intersections in the city which will include traffic signal control system along with the provision of pelican signals and blinkers implemented on city-wide level.
• The latest Composite Signal Control Strategy (CoSiCoSt) technology, used here, has been developed by Trivandrum-based Centre for Development of Advanced Computing.
• It will ensure improved travel time reliability, reduction in congestion, distribution of green phase time equitably, faster response to traffic conditions, providing timely emergencies and support and predicting traffic volumes including adjustment to signal timings, among others.
• The city now has 50 Intersections, 8 Pelicans and 5 blinkers and shall also be maintained for next 7 years by Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited.

SENSORY PARK

• BSCL and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation have now initiated the process for setting up one of its kind sensory park for children with special needs.
• Designed by Bhubaneswar Urban Knowledge Centre (BUKC), it will have ramps and facilities like sand pit and rubber flooring to curb the chances of any injuries on fall of children during play.
• For the visually challenged children, there will be Braille wall and sound wall along with reflexology path specially created integrating soil, grass and pebbles etc.
• In around 0.4 acre area, the park will be developed at a cost of around Rs 1 crore.

IPSC, BAPUJI NAGAR

• The Integrated Public Service Centre (IPSC) will have components like bill payment centre, dispensary, crèche and community group space, ward office, multipurpose hall, library and reading room and skilling centre.
• The IPSC will address the social and urban services needs of the immediate neighbourhoods.
• The proposed IPSC at Bapuji Nagar will be developed over an area of 0.3 acres.
• The design will have elements from the temples in Old Bhubaneswar. While there will be window mesh adopted from Mukteswar Temple, elephant motifs are inspired from Parasurameswar temple.