Naya Raipur to Be Recognized as India?s First Eco-Friendly Smart City!

Posted by Ankush Trivedi on April 9th, 2018

Naya Raipur, cocooned between NH3 and NH6, lies 17km away from the city of Raipur. Today, Naya Raipur has replaced Raipur as the capital of Chhattisgarh. Back in the year 2000 after Chhattisgarh was born, there rose an up rise amongst most citizens who demanded better infrastructure and living conditions. To satisfy their people, the government of Chhattisgarh began devising a blue print to create a brand new capital of Naya Raipur.

The Strategic development team behind this smart city project in India, created NRDA (Naya Raipur Development Authority) to give an ultramodern face to the city. 

The overall outline of the city has been mapped as

• A hub for catering to the infrastructural needs of the country and a source of IT and BioTech sectors.
• A core for  trade and hospitality sectors
• Center for quality education and affordable medical services.
• A hub for maintaining man-nature symbiotic culture and a dominant financial center of the region.

Presently, Naya Raipur is a sustainable modern ‘green city’ with major eco-friendly projects in store. As environmental issues continue to crop up, the government denoted 27% of its land to be used for promoting greenery.

Hence, many schemes were undertaken to promote the latter. Some noteworthy Eco-development plans include, rain water harvesting, afforestation, generating more solar energy and sustainable urban transport project.

Moreover, to sustain the ecological balance in the city, the NRDA came up with concepts of green building. Green buildings are ecologically more optimized.

The salient points of green buildings are as follows

• These buildings are conditioned to use less water
• Conservation of natural resources by generating less waste.
• Preservation of energy and saving resources.

A prime example of such buildings are the NRDA office and the Housing board corporation itself.

A noticeable change that has awarded Naya Raipur its nickname of being India’s first Greenfield smart city is its urban transportation projects. To combat air pollution that rose to its peak by the year 2017, the NRDA developed safe and secure cycling lanes all over the city to promote non-motorized form of transportation.

Additionally, steps are taken to make rain water harvesting compulsory in every urban home in the vicinity and reports claim that the developing authorities presently are also maintaining 55 reservoirs and 3 lakes to help sustain water.

Another ground for featuring Naya Raipur under the Smart city project in India, is the development of its financial hub. Due to its modern planning, lots of natural resources are being saved. With the implementation of smart lighting using solar energy, enough revenue was left to focus on developing IT and bio-tech sectors. This, in turn, is a boon for citizens coveting jobs.

Today, Naya Raipur is a prominent name standing out amongst 98 shortlisted cities for the smart city project. With NRDA now involving citizens to facilitate development, it’s only a matter of time before Naya Raipur evolves into an ultramodern city for the world to see!