L&T gets mandate to turn Nagpur into integrated smart city

Infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has been picked as the implementation partner to make Nagpur the first large-scale integrated smart city of the country.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has handed over the letter of intent to the company.

The scope of work in phase 1 for L&T's Smart World Communications business vertical, which is part of L&T Construction, will cover laying of 1,200 km of optical fibre network, creating 136 city wi-fi hotspots at key locations, setting up 100 digital interactive kiosks and developing city surveillance systems with 3,800 IP-based cameras, the company said in a statement.

Further, 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 state-of-the-art systems powered by smart ICT (information and communications technology) tools like smart transport, solid waste management, smart lighting and the like.

These can be leveraged in a phased manner to ultimately cover the entire city, it said.

"After Jaipur, this is the most significant step in the country's journey towards establishing smart cities and we are delighted to be participating in transforming Nagpur into one," said S N Subrahmanyan, deputy managing director and president, Larsen & Toubro.

As a master systems integrator, L&T will provide cutting-edge technology solutions, including high-end analytics, mobile surveillance and high-tech tools like drones, he said.

"The Nagpur smart city project is a major milestone for the Government of Maharashtra," said Vijay Kumar Gautam, Principal Secretary, Maharashtra.

"We envisage it as a very structured programme replete with several digital technology elements," he said, adding that the Smart Strip will be a new and exciting concept attempted for the first time in the country.

The company said its Smart World business has been making its presence felt across major Indian cities by creating smart solutions.

Beginning with development of surveillance and intelligent traffic management for Gujarat and a management system at the Sabarmati jail, the company has since executed the smart city project in Jaipur and is implementing India's largest city surveillance project comprising 6,000 cameras across 1,500 plus locations in Mumbai, it said.

Similar projects are also under way in Delhi, Lucknow and Hyderabad.