Urban News

The Hindu 03.08.2009

Corporation to seek fund

Special Correspondent

TIRUCHI: Buoyed by the Centre’s decision to extend to the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) to urban local bodies with a population of five lakhs and above, officials of the Tiruchi Corporation are busy preparing proposals to be forwarded for financial assistance under the project.

The corporation has planned to seek over Rs.1,000 crores for major civic infrastructure development projects in the city.

Tiruchi, Salem and Tirupur Corporations have qualified for inclusion under the JNNURM consequent to the Union government’s decision to relax the population criteria.

Previously, urban local bodies with a population of 10 lakhs and above only were eligible to get assistance under the project.

Following a request from the Chief Minister, M.Karunanidhi and the Deputy Chief Minister, M.K.Stalin’s recent meeting with officials of the Union government, the Centre has now decided to include urban local bodies with a population above five lakhs under the project. Tiruchi City, as per the 2001 census, had a population of about 7.52 lakhs.

The Director of Municipal Administration has directed the Commissioner of the Corporation to come up with proposals to be discussed at a meeting this week.

Corporation officials were now working on drawing up the proposals.

A City Development Plan, already prepared by Community Consulting India Private Limited, will form the basis for the projects to be drawn up now.

The plan presents an assessment of the existing infrastructure of the city and its requirements over the next 30 years.

The Corporation had commissioned the consultant to prepare the plan to identify the development priorities of the city in anticipation of getting financial assistance under the JNNURM.

Speaking to The Hindu, Commissioner T.T.Balsamy indicated that the major projects that were proposed to be taken up under the JNNURM would include the extension of the underground drainage scheme to the suburban areas of the city, establishment of a state-of-the-art sewage treatment plant, a massive solidwaste improvement project and complete renovation of eight major drainages that serve as flood carriers during monsoon

The extension of the underground sewage system to the suburban areas was a felt need as most of the newly added residential colonies lack the facility now.

The new project was expected to be even bigger than the recently implemented underground drainage scheme, sanctioned at a cost of about Rs.100 crores under the National River Conservation Programme.

Mr.Balsamy said once the preliminary list of projects were finalised, consultants would be appointed to prepare detailed project reports for them individually.

The Hindu 03.08.2009

Speech software to help you navigate the city

M. Dinesh Varma

CHENNAI: Speech software is now at hand to tell mobile users which MTC buses ply the route they want to take, which movie is playing where or what the ISD code for a city is.

Chennai-based software solutions provider LatticeBridge Infotech has launched a utility voice portal that uses speech identification technology to provide value-added services to mobile users.

Toll line 55305

The service, which has been launched on Vodafone, will soon be extended to other operators as a State-wide utility. The toll line 55305 will be the same for operators across the State.

“We have started with four services and our content team is working on other areas such as agricultural commodity prices,” C.Mohan Ram, managing director, LatticeBridge Infotech told The Hindu.

The voice portal provides information in English, Tamil and Hindi on air timings, movies, STD/ISD codes and MTC bus routes.

Though the MTC data is the only one that is mapped in Chennai, it has relevance for travellers coming into Chennai or for tourists visiting the capital.

“The idea is to provide localised value-added services rather than the usual “ABC” fare of astrology, Bollywood and cricket,” Mr.Ram said.

Voice prompts scores

He says speech technology using voice prompts scores over other user-activated information services such as navigating through a series of push key sequences as it is more straight-forward option for the base of pyramid mobile users.

LatticeBridge, which also runs an SMS-based service for the workforce of an automotive firm in Chennai, has found that almost 60 per cent of the 35,000 text messages that land each month on its server are erroneous.

“Speech-based services can also have value for urbane users on the move who decide on a movie on the spur of the moment,” said Mr.Ram.

Noise filter

With a speech to noise filter ratio of 60:40, the software can work even when the caller is asking for information in a fairly noisy background. Whenever the user’s request is inaudible or unclear, he is asked to repeat the prompt.

Since its launch, the service has been averaging about 2,000 calls a day. Information on movies is the most popular request with peaks on Friday through Sunday followed by Chennai bus routes and airway timings. The average call duration is about 96 seconds.