After
installing a solar panel topped structure as smart street bench at its
main office, the Coimbatore Corporation has decided to go in for 30 more
such benches.

With a solar panel as roof, people can sit at the
smart bench and enjoy Wi-Fi connectivity. It has power points to charge
phones or tablet computing devices. The Corporation has said that the
benches to be installed could have a few sensors as well.

Sources
familiar with the development said that the Corporation would install
the benches in the wards that come under the area based development
component of the smart cities project. The estimated cost of each of the
benches was around Rs. 4 lakh.

The Corporation could go in for a
public-private partnership model of development – meaning, the companies
installing the smart benches could provide advertisement space or
choose other advertisement mechanisms to recover the installation cost.

The
Corporation was also giving the companies/contractors the freedom to
modify the design of the benches. They need not be a replication of the
one in the Corporation main office.

The Corporation had meanwhile
called online for request for proposal for 10 such benches. The
Corporation had said that the idea of a smart bench was to create a
unique design that provided solar energy to power cell phones, Wi-Fi,
LED lighting, and sensor data gathering gadgets.

The objective was to make streets and public properties smarter and greener with the proposed smart bench.

Sources
in the Corporation, however, said that the civic body must first
explain the purpose of and the benefit for the public from the smart
bench in the main office. It should provide details like how many people
had utilised the facility, charged their phone and was there a written
feedback. They added that the Corporation should not rush into
establishing more benches.