M.G. Road to turn smart soon with unique services

Cisco’s Golden Mile Project to become reality in a couple of months

The MG Road on a busy day in Vijayawada.— Photo: V. Raju

The M. G. Road in the city is a couple of months away from becoming one of the most advanced public spaces in the country.

The stretch of the city’s arterial road between the Benz Circle and the Police Control Room which was selected for Cisco’s Golden Mile Project last year would soon get a wide range of smart services for the public through an integrated smart phone application and a website. The project is owned by the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation and executed byCisco which had done similar projects in a few other cities of the country.

“We have provided such individual smart services in other cities like Bengaluru. Vijayawada is the first city to have all such smart services integrated and it is unique in the country,” Cisco’s Associate Technical Manager and In-charge of the project Karthik Pendurthi told

The Hindu.

Speaking about the status of the project, Mr. Karthik said most of the works had been done and testing was on. “We are awaiting sensor equipment from the US which will likely arrive in a fortnight. We have been testing smart transport system and smart parking system with 10 sample parking lots, air data and others currently. Once the equipment is received, everything can be done in real time and it may take a month,” he said.

The smart parking application which will be available on the smart phone app will show the location of parking lot and availability of space to the user, the smart lighting system automatically switches on and off the lights based on natural light availability. Through connected transport app users get updates like location, time of arrival, seats availability of the buses plying on the road. Two buses are fixed with equipment and are currently being tested, Mr. Karthik said.

Also, free WiFi will be provided to the users on the road once the project is done.

A special civic service called ‘Remote Expert Government Services’ has been initiated in the third floor of the PVP Square Mall from where people can interact with civic officials on video call and register their complaints or report issues in the city.

The project is worth Rs. 7.91 crore. The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation is going to contribute Rs. 62 lakh while Cisco is providing equipment and expertise worth Rs. 3.81 crore, the State government Rs. 3 crore and the ITE&C Department Rs. 48 lakh.