Wednesday 4 April 2018

SRINAGAR: STEPS TOWARDS SMART CITY BY Aqib Iqbal


SRINAGAR
STEPS TOWARDS SMART CITY

Aqib Iqbal , Civil 1st Semester
4th, April, 2018

Everything in this world when created from its initial shape want to get modified in the more advanced form. It is the feature of everything which possess the power of selection between two different things, for non living things which humans created this feature is absent in them, but it is the responsibility of those persons who created it, to reform it when necessary, so that it will not loose its existence in this fast reforming world.
As we see today lots of new strange things came into existence as a result of innovative engineers. They not only build a particular structure but also maintains it, so that it will never claim to them that it was created and left alone with no care. It is the same thing which happened with Srinagar, built and left alone without care and Srinagar is claiming about its situation to those political leaders and engineers who daily cross Jahangir  chowk but never look down to the roads, govt.  properties, and people in the dust .

I personally feel can I do something?  But soon I realized I can do even by writing a single article about the current situation of Srinagar. We should take steps if they are not so effective, at least we will feel if Allah (swt) will ask us what we did we will be able to say something before Almighty. I am putting forward list of some steps which should be taken for a real smart city project.

A city to be called a smart city should possess well developed roads, traffic free lanes, safe roads for different type of transport, effective drainage system, well equipped infrastructure and well maintained public parks. For our Srinagar a big problem we are facing is heavy traffic and odd diversions. A system should be created in which first it should be evaluated how much traffic holding capacity Srinagar possess, after that it should be decided when traffic load exceeds beyond holding capacity. After analyzing the data,  incoming and outgoing traffic should be so maintained that not a single car should block at certain place in Srinagar at this particular time. Also illegal parking should be completely banned as I feel they are contributing a big portion in traffic jams daily. So if these steps will be taken I feel we will be able to solve the traffic crises at a huge level.

I feel a big challenge for us is the flood channel running in the Rambagh portion which then extends and thus covers a large region including Srinagar. Last time flood destroyed Srinagar city almost completely, I know if we will design effective water drainage system still it will not hold the whole flood water, but we can minimize its effects if we will able to find a way in which we can shift flood water to a particular place which can absorb or at least store huge amount of water when flood channel will be unable to hold flood water. We can’t design flood channel so that it can hold flood water whole, Srinagar water drainage system should be  designed in a way so that it will break the flood water flow into small streams containing flood water and then sent it to the reservoir or somewhere else where it could be stored.

At last most important feature of a smart city Srinagar should be its easy connectivity with rest valley. Connectivity in the sense that hospitals, government offices ,schools should be at a place where every portion of valley will reach easily. Hospitals should be at least on the boundary of city because emergency cases should be as soon as possible shifted to hospitals but unfortunately in the interior of city they face the traffic jams and resulting in the death of those patients which could be saved if they will be treated on time. If schools, govt. offices will be on one side of city, hospitals should be on opposite or far way from that side as merging them results all the problems which we are facing today. Markets should be at the centre of city and rest which I mentioned above should be placed at proper places. Garbage deposition sites should be far away from human sites as Srinagar today is a city covered with garbage only. So if these sites will be separated from human colonies it will result a disease free environment. A special system should be created in which it should be decided how to treat this garbage.

Pollution is also a part of our Srinagar city so I thing a best method for traffic pollution control is to adopt odd even rule  for personal vehicles.
Smart city does not means only well developed infrastructure, rather it should possess all basic facilities to its citizens including fresh environment and crime free atmosphere also.

I in the whole article repeated system in almost every section, it is because I think system is the basic thing which leads to the development, for our Kashmir administrative system should  also be smart enough so that not a single case of corruption should be unregistered. As polluted political system is the biggest barrier to the development, to develop the smart system we should develop first the system of clean politics in valley. It means every Kashmiri should participate in nation building and create the smart valley, not only smart city. Our every system should be smart  i.e. our political, social, economic and religious harmony as well as unity among majority religion Islam in the valley.


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