Venkaiah to inaugurate Ficci Smart Cities meet tomorrow

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) is organising a two-day summit, ‘100 Smart Cities: Mission Transform Nation’, beginning Thursday, at FICCI Federation House, New Delhi. Union Minister of Housing and Urban Development M Venkaiah Naidu is slated to inaugurate the event.

The summit is a Ficci initiative to support the gigantic business interests generated by the Smart Cities initiative of the Government. The federation aims to provide a platform to discuss the progress of the mission, approach and plans adopted by states, cities and urban local bodies, implementation challenges, business opportunities for smart technology solutions, case studies of international smart city projects and experiences and expert views of Indian and foreign urban sector professionals towards building smart cities.

Some of the eminent speakers at the summit will include Dr. Nandita Chatterjee, Secretary, Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation,  Adarsh Shastri, Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Information & Technology, Subhash Chandra, Chairman, Essel Group, Kunal Kumar, Municipal Commissioner, Pune Municipal Corporation, Jungik Kim, GM, Korea Land and Housing (LH) Corporation, Leighton Phillips, V-P,  Intel Solutions Group, Asia-Pacific-Japan and Purushottam Kaushik, Managing Director, Cisco.

Jyotsna Suri, President, Ficci, said the summit aims to deliberate on the roadmap for cities and how industry could play a significant role in the Smart City development mission. Pradeep Puri, Chairman, Ficci Urban Infrastructure & Smart Cities Committee, said Ficci is engaging with various Indian cities to advise on appropriate governance, implementation frameworks and financing options.