Promising Cities Seminar Thane

After a successful first Promising Cities Seminar in Ahmedabad, Smart Cities Council India kicked off its second seminar in Thane last month. In February 2015, Smart Cities Council India named India´s 20 Most Promising Cities and Thane was among them. Taking this recognition to the next level, the council started working towards catalysing the smart journey of the promising cities and planned to organise seminars at these cities. The first seminar was held on July 10 this year in Ahmedabad; on August 4, the second was organised in Thane. After independence, Thane grew slowly to attain industrial town status in the 1960s. With trade, transport and construction activities picking up in the 1980s, the 1990s saw the city rapidly growing in construction and housing. Since then, Thane has been on an urbanisation spree. So much so that today, the city is considered among the prime suburbs of Mumbai. The half-day seminar was opened by Pratap Padode, Founder & Director, Smart Cities Council India, where he highlighted the major infrastructure-related challenges in Thane, thus setting the perfect tone for the seminar. Further, there was a dedicated interactive session, ´Rethinking Urban Landscape´, which focused on specific areas Thane needs to work on. While Dilip Madhav Shotriya, Principal Advisor-Solid Waste Management, MMRDA, spoke on solid waste management, Sandeep Adhyapak, Chairman & Managing Director, WaterField Technologies, emphasised upon water management, and Sree Kumar, Managing Associate, EMBARQ, focused on transportation needs. Also, Ashutosh Puranik, Marketing Manager, Saint-Gobain Gyproc and Shoaib Shaikh, Regional Manager, Saint-Gobain India - Glass Business made a presentation on understanding technology. This was followed by an insightful presentation on urban mobility solutions by Rohit Parulekar, Vice President, Western Region-Operations, Schindler India. With an impressive line-up of attendees including developers, builders, architects, EPC contractors, civic authorities and more, the success of the seminar was a clear reflection of Thane´s commitment to progress and becoming future-smart.