Multinational firm Larsen and Toubro was on Tuesday appointed by the Maharashtra government as its official implementation partner in the project to turn Nagpur into a smart city. The government handed over its letter of intent to the company, The Indian Express reported. Nagpur is high on the agenda for Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, as it is considered one of the state’s most vital cities and has a central location on the India map. It is also Fadnavis’ hometown.

L&T will be involved in laying 1,200 km of optical fibre across the city to make it Wi-Fi enabled through hotspots and “digital interactive kiosks”. It will also build facilities such as “smart transport”, “smart lighting” and solid waste management along a “smart strip” of 6 km, which is to be expanded later. The company said it will provide technology in the form of analytics, mobile surveillance and high-end tools such as drones.

The state had listed ten cities to be developed under the Centre’s smart city programme – Mumbai, Pune, Amravati, Kalyan-Dombivali, Thane, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Nashik, Solapur, Aurangabad and Nagpur. L&T was also part of the smart city project in Jaipur, in addition to providing urban solutions in other major metropolises such as Mumbai and Ahmedabad.