Tumakuru and Denmark's Aalborg sign 'sister city' deal

Tumakuru has become the first smart city in the state to tie-up with another, outside India.

The city will now be developed on the lines of Aalborg in Denmark. The state government on Thursday signed a memorandum with officials from Denmark, to develop both smart cities as “sister cities”.

The agreement, which was signed in the presence of Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister J C Madhuswamy, who is also the MLA representing Chikkanayakanahalli in Tumakuru district, aims at knowledge sharing between the cities, apart from several programmes to develop education, healthcare and citizen services.

According to an official release, Tumakuru and Aalborg have agreed to programme of cooperation on Smart City solutions, to create sustainable and smarter cities. “As cities of tomorrow will highly depend on joint knowledge and actions from multiple stakeholders, the cooperation will be based on collaboration between all stakeholders in the smart city sectors, state and city government, the industry, utilities, universities, non-governmental organisations and civil society,” the release stated.

Some of the projects lined up include smart classrooms in government schools and college at an estimated cost of Rs 2.97 crore, a digital library at Rs 1.45 crore, streetlight controlling system at Rs 60 crore and development of lakes at Rs 35 crore.

Speaking to DH, Minister Madhuswamy said the projects would be taken forward based on funding support from the Denmark government, though it was not yet clear what the ratio of fund share would be. Further, the Denmark government would also extend technical support and help in the implementation of the charted out programmes.

The Centre has chosen Belagavi, Davangere, Hubballi-Dharwad, Shivamogga, Mangaluru, Tumakuru and Bengaluru for development under the Smart Cities mission.