The Union Minister of Housing & Urban Affairs and Petroleum & Natural Gas, Shri Hardeep S Puri, today interacted with a group of Mass Communication students from Indraprastha College for Women, Delhi University. Addressing the students, Mr Puri highlighted the importance of developing sustainable urban settlements across the country to ensure a better quality of life for all citizens. The Minister  highlighted the increased spend on the urban sector which has seen tremendous transformation using technology and innovation while acknowledging that work on some issues are in progress. Shri Puri, said that the investment in urban areas has increased from only Rs. 1.78 lakh crores between 2004 to 2014, to more than Rs. 18 lakh crores since 2014 to 2023. Stating that the cities are the centres of economic growth he shared the tremendous progress made in addressing challenges in  waste processing, urban mobility, and affordable housing. He invited the young minds to observe the transformation in the landscape as they travel across the country.

The Minister spoke of the importance of building a connect between the Government and young people, so as to demystify the schemes and programmes of the Government. Further, Mr. Puri said that such interactions should be encouraged, as it helps the youth to appreciate government initiatives to improve the quality of life of citizens across the country. The students also visited the India Urban Observatory (IUO) located in Nirman Bhawan, which is a state-of-the- art interactive showcase of collective insights on Indian cities. He said that this observatory allows us to get real time data and status of flagship urban schemes across the country. The IUO aims to provide reliable, up-to-date information on a meaningful set of indicators over various domains such as mobility, water, sanitation, health, environment by leveraging advanced AI/ML, data science, analytics & visualisation capabilities. Appreciating the initiative to facilitate a visit to provide an indepth understanding of the working of the IUO, Mr. Puri said such efforts provide good exposure to the youth who would be the leaders and opinion makers of tomorrow and the drivers of ‘Amrit Kaal’

The Minister explained the concept of ‘Smart Cities’ in India and described the Integrated Command and Control Centres(ICCC) established under this Mission became war rooms and helped manage the COVID- 19 pandemic in the 100 Smart Cities. Highlighting the importance of the use of technology in urban development and governance, he shared how crime against women has substantially reduced in the smart cities due to continuous monitoring through the ICCCs. He said that the technology is also very useful in ensuring safety of women. As each of the 100 Smart Cities began to implement ‘smart’ solutions, data has become a significant asset and an enabler for data driven governance, leading to urban transformation. The Observatory will plug into various sources of data from cities both from real- time and archival sources for generating insights through analytics for cities, academia, industry and governments.

 

Shri Puri also mentioned ‘The Urban Learning Internship Program (TULIP)’, which envisions creating synergies between advancing functional skills in students and harnessing their energy and ideas to co-create solutions for the future of our cities. This programme has provided never before opportunities for a substantial pool of technical graduates, for whom exposure to real-world project implementation and planning is essential for professional development. Through various initiatives, they have been nurtured and encouraged to provide ‘out of the box’ solutions to help promote ease of living for India’s urban population.

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