L&T inks pact with Maharashtra govt for Nagpur Smart City project

New Delhi: Infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has signed a pact with the Maharashtra government for converting Nagpur into a smart city. “L&T Construction’s Smart World & Communications Business Unit announced today the signing of the formal contract with the Department of Information & Technology, Maharashtra Government, under which Nagpur will be converted into the country’s first large-scale integrated Smart City,” L&T said in a statement today.  The scope of work will cover laying of 1,200 km of optical fibre network backbone, creating 136 city wifi hotspots at key locations, establishing 100 digital interactive kiosks and developing city surveillance systems with 3800 IP-based cameras, it said. Further, as an avant-garde endeavor, the city has identified a strip of approximately 6 km from Japanese Garden Square to Orange City Hospital Square to be developed as a ‘Smart Strip’ with smart ICT interventions & IOT (Internet of Things) solutions like smart lighting, smart transport, smart parking, smart bins, etc. “We are proud for having bagged this prestigious order which is a significant step forward towards achieving the smart city mission,” S N Subrahmanyan, Deputy Managing Director & President, Larsen & Toubro, said. “We had initiated activities on the ground post the award of the LOI on August 15 and have already covered a fair bit of ground to transform Nagpur,” he added. The company has completed detailed surveys of the proposed junctions, smart strip and zonal ring and even procured the requisite approvals for conducting the LiDAR survey for surveillance and wifi deployment. Expressing satisfaction at the rapid headway being made in the landmark project, Vijay Kumar Gautam, Principal Secretary, Government of Maharashtra, said, “In L&T, we have chosen the right implementation partner with proven expertise and track-record to execute this project and we are very happy with the manner in which they have started the process of doing the ground work.” The company said its ‘Smart World’ business has been making significant progress across several major Indian cities by creating smart solutions. Beginning with the development of surveillance and intelligent traffic management systems for the Government of Gujarat in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Vadodara, it said the business has since executed the smart city project in Jaipur and recently launched India’s largest city surveillance project, Mumbai City Surveillance, for the Government of Maharashtra. Several other smart, safe and communication projects are also underway across various states. Larsen & Toubro is an Indian multinational engaged in technology, engineering, construction, manufacturing and financial services with USD 16 billion in revenue. It operates in over 30 countries.