Vizag to be the First Smart City in India.

Visakhapatnam will be the first city in the country to be taken up for development under Smart City project among the cities chosen from Telangana, AP, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra.

Informing this to AP chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu through a video-call recently, chief technology officer (CTO) of Cisco Padmasree Warrior and president (Globalization and Smart Connected Communities) for Cisco Systems Anil Menon said the development model adopted by Cisco for Visakhapatnam would be replicated in other cities too.

The Cisco would focus on setting up a skill development centre and provide training through Global Talent Tracker (GTT), they said and added that the company was also keen on working with AP in digitising education and healthcare.

The Cisco also evinced interest in working on disaster management technologies. Stating that Vizag had great potential to be transformed into a financial, IT powerhouse and a logistics hub, Naidu said the Centre had recently sanctioned the Sagarmala Project that covered AP. Naidu asked Padmasree to adopt a village under the government's flagship 'Smart Village-Smart Ward' initiative.


THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS