Efforts are on to make AP ‘seamlessly smart’

• A slew of measures initiated in energy, gas, farming and IT sectors
• Five-grid network in the pipeline
• New-age university, educational institutions part of the plan
• Plans are afoot to create ‘Smart AP’ in next five years

Hyderabad: Explaining Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chnadrababu Naidu’s vision of ‘Smart AP’, Advisor (Communications) to the AP government, Parakala Prabhakar said a five-grid network, mission-mode administrative initiatives, new-age university and institutions and a 21st century capital city are among the ambitious plans laid out by the AP government in pursuance of turning AP into a seamlessly smart State.

A slew of initiatives particularly in the energy, gas, farming and IT sectors have been taken up by the government in that direction.

“We are building a capital city. This is perhaps the first capital city which is conceived and being built in the 21st century. All other capitals belong to the 20th century. Now, you have this buzzword today which is ‘smart cities’. We can show in our new capital, what a smart city ought to be. What could it be,” Advisor (Communications) to the AP government, Parakala Prabhakar.

Maintaining that the state government is not limiting itself to smart cities, he said, the idea is to build or convert villages, universities, institutes of higher learning, R&D institutions in a 'smart' way.

“All this put together will come to smart governance. This will aggregate into a smart Andhra Pradesh. Our target now in the next five years is to make Andhra Pradesh, a smart Andhra Pradesh,” he said.

For the purpose, the government would put in place five grids – an optical fibre grid, a road grid, a gas grid, power grid and water grid. The optical fibre grid takes optical fibre connectivity to all households in every village and the road grid connects every village and the port to the hinterland.

“Through the gas grid, the KG-basin and other gas resources would be brought to every industry and every household for LPG, for CNG. The State has already been sanctioned an LNG terminal,” he said.

Under the power grid, the small number of habitations (predominantly tribal) in the remote areas of the State which do not have access to electricity would be electrified and the State is now part of the '24x7 power for all' initiative of the Centre.

“These five grids are going to make our State a smart state. We are working towards smart Andhra Pradesh. We are not confining ourselves to just build a few and far between cities which are smart. It is going to be smartness seamlessly throughout the State. This is going to be our agenda for the next five years,” Prabhakar said.

The State government would leverage funds from Union government, international financial institutions, international lending agencies, the PPP route and also CSR funds for drinking water, education, skill upgrading and other areas, he said.

Andhra Pradesh, he said, was keen on embracing the 'smart' practices as the government had begun the task of building the new State, including developing a capital city.