the goan I network
PANAJI
With plans to launch the ‘smart city card’ for residents of the city on July 30 not materialising, Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Limited (IPSCDL) now says the launch is dependent on when Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar will be available, and that the launch will happen ‘any time’ as they are all ready with the product.
However, Parrikar is set to leave Goa on August 7 for Delhi en-route to the United States for his health check-up and will return only around August 19.
With enthusiastic plans to make the city ‘smart’ under the Government of India’s ‘Smart City Mission’, IPSCDL had come up with the concept of a ‘smart city card’, a card that would be distributed to Panjimites to facilitate the payment of bills in government offices, as well as for transactions with traders in the city. 60,000 cards are set to be distributed in a bid to go cashless.
IPSCDL also plans to distribute POS machines to traders within the city, and had held a meeting with them at the end of June to explain the concept.
It was then that IPSCDL had said that the product would be launched on July 30.
Although IPSCDL aims to make the city ‘smart’ in a time-bound manner, everything may not be going according to plan.
CEO and MD of IPSCDL Swayandipta Chaudhuri said on Monday that IPSCDL is ‘ready with everything’ and that the only thing holding back the launch of the smart city card was the inability to get a time when the Chief Minister is free.
“We have requested a time from the CM. We are ready with everything, but we wanted the CM to inaugurate the product. It’s a product of the city, and we would like him to launch it,” said Chaudhuri.
However, though Chaudhuri also said that the product could be launched “before the CM travels,” and that it would be launched “anytime now”, it seems highly unlikely that it will take place before August 20, given that the CM is leaving the state today.
