Rajasthan plans 'Smart Village'

The Rajasthan government has come up with the Smart Village initiative -- on the lines of the central government's Smart Cities Mission.

At the 'Global Rajasthan Agritech Meet (GRAM) 2016' in Jaipur, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Thursday said Dhanora village in Dhaulpur was selected to be developed as Smart Gram on pilot basis.

"We will have to focus on small things to build smart cities. Under the Smart Gram plan, we are planning to provide Wi-Fi, public health care, computers in schools, good internal road connectivity in villages," said Raje.

"We are also looking at connecting primary health centres with the hospitals in the cities to provide facilities such as tele-medicine," the Chief Minister said.

At the same event, she appealed to Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu to look into the subject.

Naidu responded positively, saying: "It will be put before the cabinet for discussion."

Seventy per cent of our population lives in villages and it cannot be ignored to our journey to become smart, the Rajasthan government said.

--IANS

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