Tumakuru, Danish city sign pact for smart solutions

Tumakuru Smart City Limited and the city of Aalborg in Denmark on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to strengthen institutional ties between the two cities and to foster sister city concept.

Under the MoU, the cities would involve in exchange of knowledge, study tours and workshops on specific topics, joint projects in the field of smart city solutions, mutual visits by high-ranking representatives from both, an official statement said here.

Aalborg city would also assist Tumakuru Smart City Limited in identifying potential sources of financial support for smart solution projects, it said.

The MoU was signed by chairperson of Tumkuru Smart City Limited Shalini Rajneesh and Ambassador of Denmark Freddy Svane in the presence of Tumakuru district in-charge Minister J C Maduswamy here.

The areas of potential co-operation are smart education, digitalisation, urban water management, transportation, technology for construction of green buildings, healthy and liveable cities, and e-governance.

While speaking on the occasion, Madhuswamy lauded the efforts of Tumakuru smart city and hoped the association would help in development of Tumkuru as an edge city to reduce the pressure on Bengaluru, the state capital.

Located 70 km from Bengaluru, Tumakuru is one of the 100 cities identified by the government of India to implement the smart city mission programme.

The city was identified in 2016 and the process of designing the projects and implementation began since March 2017 by formation of a special purpose vehicle - a company incorporated under Companies Act 2013.

Fostering a sister city concept would enable sustained, long bi-lateral cooperation that would encourage knowledge transfer across government, business and academia, officials said.

Tumakuru and Aalborg have agreed to engage in programme of cooperation on smart city solutions, as part of the basis for creating more sustainable and smarter livable cities, they said.