Post News Network, Bhubaneswar, Feb 10: The Orissa chapter of ‘The Institute of Architects’ (IIA) wants Bhubaneswar and Rourkela to be turned into smart cities, out of the list of six most preferred cities chosen for possible upgrade, a top official of the body said.
“We prefer Bhubaneswar and Rourkela to be incarnated into smart cities out of the six proposed cities in state,” national council member of IIA Akshaya Kumar Beuria said while announcing the date of the 8th design carnival that is going to start from February 12 and will continue till February 14.
While talking to the press on smart cities Beuria said, due to the strategic importance of Bhubaneswar in eastern India and its ever increasing size and population, it deserves to become a smart city. The smart city status to the city can help it to explore possibilities of benefitting itself by establishing networks of partnership among business institutions, government and civic authorities, research institutions and the denizens.
“The temple city is reeling under some basic infrastructural challenges and various civic problems; these show that the city requires more extensive planning and this can be done if the city is listed in the smart city project. We are going to submit the plan for the smart cities to the state government by the end of this fiscal,” he added.
Beuria said the three day event will mainly focus on the various aspects of the smart cities. He also said more than 300 architects, planners, thinkers, artists, engineers and policy makers would take part in the event that is expected to register footfall of more than three hundred visitors.
Talking on the scope of architecture as an engineering discipline, Mousumi Nanda, joint secretary IIA Orissa chapter, said the number of colleges offering the course has increased from two to seven as compared to last year. The real estate will again gain impetus and various schemes related to infra development will be launched by the government and those will give the budding talents in state an opportunity to further their careers.
“We are expecting that the numbers of architects will double by next three years. Currently more than 200 active architects are there in state,” Nanda said.