The orange city of India will be a smart city soon. Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Cisco in San-Fransisco to make his home town a smart city.

The project will look at ways to improve the quality of life in Nagpur using modern-day technology and meet the target of making it a safe and smart city. Cisco is a leader in the field of networking instruments and provides security solutions using CCTV, Internet intelligent transport system, and others.

Fadnavis, who is on a tour of the US, met Cisco's executive vice president and chief development officer to discuss the plan and design of smart city for Nagpur. Fadnavis was quoted in the media saying that “it is my endeavour to smarten the whole of Maharashtra. It should not start and stop at Nagpur alone. I would like to proceed with the same zeal and commitment to upgrade villages to towns and towns to cities in phases across the state.”

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “smart cities” project, 10 cities from Maharashtra will get a facelift. Outlining the advantages of Nagpur, which is geographically at the centre of India, the CM said the metro project has been sanctioned and a new Indian Institute of Information and Technology has been approved.

He also visited Google's headquarters and met the company's senior officials with state industry minister Subhash Desai. Fadnavis also showed interest in starting operations in the state in the areas of street view, access and Google education.

Fadnavis later met industry leaders at a invest Maharashtra round table conference and spoke on the technological expertise of Maharashtra.