Citizen-friendly initiatives by four Maharashtra cities win accolades from the Centre

Cities from Maharashtra have dominated the #Streets4People Challenge organised by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs under the Smart Cities Mission to make public places more people-friendly.

Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Nagpur and Aurangabad figure among the 11 cities selected for scaling up their pilot projects and creating permanent public infrastructure.

In a competition that was open to 113 smart cities, 38 cities piloted the re-imagination of an important street each by prioritizing them for pedestrians.

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The Streets4People competition required cities to redesign their streets as public spaces through low-cost innovative measures making them safe for citizens, more particularly senior citizens and children.

Of the 38 cities who submitted their proposal 11 cities – Aurangabad, Bengaluru, Gurugram, Kochi, Kohima, Nagpur, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune, Udaipur, Ujjain and Vijayawada were selected as pioneers for showcasing creative on ground transformation and extensive collaboration with citizens.

Pune won the accolades for reclaiming space along several roads to create safe and exciting ‘experience zones’ for all citizens. The city activated these edges by painting the spaces, conducting laughter yoga sessions, music sessions, introducing kids play-areas etc. Going ahead, the city plans to build wider footpaths and install street furniture at different locations.

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Pimpri-Chinchwad was hailed as the walking and cycling champion for reclaiming space from carriageways for segregated cycle lanes and footpaths. The city worked closely with their Street Design Consultants to further their city-wide Harit Setu Masterplan, connecting green spaces across the city.

Aurangabad leveraged its success of the ‘Open Street Campaign’ by reclaiming carriageway space with vibrant paints and billboards. They also added low-cost seating that allowed citizens to spend time and enjoy the newly created space. The Aurangabad Smart City Development Corporation and the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation plan to transform the stretch from Kranti Chowk to the Cannought area in a sustainable way, giving it a modern look.

Working closely with technical experts and key stakeholders, Nagpur strategically reorganised the street section along with the very busy Sitabuldi market and Sakkadara to allocate more walking space for people. The city used colourful paints, old car tyres as planters and seating made with scrap materials to demarcate the new walkways.

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Nagpur Smart & Sustainable City Development Corporation Ltd will further facilitate bicycle rental, e-rickshaw projects as part of its green city initiative.

Making school zones and market areas pedestrian-only zones (Gurugram), making heritage precincts a car-free zone (Ujjain), reorganizing traffic flow at the local bus station to promote people safety (Udaipur), enlivening dead corridors and spaces under flyover with colourful street art murals (Karnal) and promoting street museum through art display (Kohima) were some of the other noteworthy people-friendly initiatives that won accolades from the Centre.

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