Smart City benefits must go to villages first Nihal Chand Spoke on ZTEsoft User Group Forum 2015

On May 7, 2015

Mr. Nihal Chand, the Minister of State Panchayati Raj, gave emphasis on development of villages at large and urged the smart city developers to see that smart city benefit goes to villages first while speaking on ZTEsoft User Group Forum 2015 in New Delhi on the concluding day of 2- day event organized by the ZTEsoft, China based software company, which has offered to invest 500 cr in building smart cities in India.

Mr. Nihal Chand welcomed the move of ZTEsoft’s initiative to build Smart city in India and gave assurance to extend full support for the project. He said, “The villages are to be included while building the smart cities in India”. He also said, “Development of every city passes through the villages. (Har Sehar ka pragati gaon ke raste se hokar gujarti hai). We are shortly going to tie up with ZTEsoft to discuss the smart city model keeping in view of development of the villages”. He also asserted, “Panchayat has now a five – year plan & it will give budget in regular basis for the development which has been proclaimed by the Prime Minister in a recent Panchayat Raj meeting on 24^th April 2015. The priority areas are Water, Education & health”. The Minister has also asked ZTEsoft to develop smart solution model in village level.

Mr. Ben Zhou CEO International ZTEsoft said, “We are keen to invest in India in building smart cities since we have an experience of 5 years developing smart city model & we have worked for 40 smart cities in South Asia including homeland china. We have developed many smart cities in china namely Yinchuan, Ningbo, Nanzing, Wuhan, Taicang. We have same culture, same demography as India has. Therefore, we are sure to provide better city, better services and better life”.

ZTEsoft User Group Forum 2015 started on 5^th may where the delegates from various ministries of govt. of India have participated on this forum, Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Urban Development, Ministry of Labour & Social Empowerment, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Railway etc. to name a few.

“We have got very good response from govt. of India and successfully completed our first step towards building the smart city project. We are coordinating Ministry of urban development as well as PMO. However, we are looking forward PM’s visits to china smart cities where ZTEsoft has developed the smart city model and we will be happy to be the part of delegation” said, Prasoon Sharma M.D India & South Asia ZTEsoft.