Chief Minister Smt. Vasundhara Raje has said that BRICS countries can cooperate mutually for the development of smart cities and other infrastructure. Smt. Raje was addressing as a keynote speaker at BRICS Smart Cities Conference held at hotel Jaimahal in Jaipur on Friday.

Smt. Raje said innovative urban environmental management practices made in Saint Petersburg in Russia, Rio and Sao Paulo of Brazil, Cape Town and Johannesburg of South Africa, Shanghai and Beijing of China Could be implemented in India keeping in view the conditions here. Member countries of BRICS can learn many things from each other. The collaborations within BRICS shall strengthen ties and improve our appreciation of each other’s cultures and peoples, she said.

The Chief Minister said exchange of experiences and the sharing of solutions among urban development managers and scholars shall surely help in making our cities better, safer and more resilient. Smt. Raje said growth of population in urban settlements is posing many challenges. It has placed additional loads on the infrastructure in every city. Our thinking is that cities of tomorrow require technology-driven inputs to make life of our citizen easier and safer. She said when we talk about the concept of smart city we see the city which is clean, organized, well lit, safe and encourages non-motorised transport.

The Chief Minister said smart cities are of little use without smart citizens. To make our citizens smart and skilled our government has taken skill development as a top most priority, she said. We have engaged with numerous partners in skilling up our youth in a wide range of trades. ITIs have been taken up by Industrial Houses to impart skills and all our industry partners are collaborators in creating job and imparting world class training to our youth.

Smt. Raje said with support from Govt. of India we are developing Jaipur, Ajmer, Kota and Udaipur as smart cities. Jaipur with its effort in smart lighting, IT enabled services, interactive kiosks, remote e-Governance solutions, Parking Management Systems and increasing wi-fi connectivity is moving ahead to become a smart city. Jaipur has been declared first Light House City in South Asia. UNESCO has nominated Jaipur as the City of Crafts and Folk Art while the World Crafts Council has also declared Jaipur as a Crafts City.

The Chief Minister was hopeful that coming together to discuss matters of mutual and problems of mutual concern will help in many ways. Exchange of experiences and sharing of solutions shall help in making our cities better and safer, she said.

In the beginning while welcoming the delegates Joint Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, Govt. of India Shri Alok Dimri said conferences and seminars being organised in various cities in context with the 8th BRICS summit scheduled to be held in October at Goa. Vice Chancellor of Sardar Patel University of Police, Jodhpur Dr. Bhupendra Singh said vote of thanks.

Jaipur, 19 August 2016

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