The ambitious Rs 180-crore Goa Intelligent City Management System (GICMS) continues to be delayed, with Imagine PanajiSmartCity Development Ltd (IPSCDL) officials now looking at a mid-April deadline to go live. The GICMS project, which includes the integrated command and control centre at Altinho, is languishing not only due to resistance from locals but also because a tender for the Internet provider fell through, say officials.
L&T, which won the GICMS contract in June 2018, has already installed close to 200 smart CCTV cameras out of the planned 338, but the link between the cameras and the command and control centre has yet to be established, said sources.
The project is running over a year late, largely due to objections by current Panaji MLA Atanasio Monserrate. The second hurdle for the GICMS project has been the delay in obtaining permissions. L&T has found that permission for digging, road-cutting and laying of key fibre cables is difficult to obtain, and the process has only been complicated due to the other unmarked utility lines laid along the roads.