Smart City Mission in India

Why in News ?

Many Smart Cities in India have started to use the Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCC) built under the Smart Cities Mission to fight against COVID-19. They are being used to keep tabs on people under quarantine and called as "COVID-19 War Room". Indian cities are driving four kinds of initiatives through an ICCC :

1. Testing and Quarantine :

• Mapping of suspected cases to optimal lab location

• No contact sample collection

• ICMR collaborates with government centres for testing

• Quarantine checks with geo-fence app

2. Containment :

• ICCC as COVID-19 war Room with 24*7 helpline

• AI based alerts for lockdown breach

• Drone survey of hotspot

• Corona tracker, e-pass & social apps

• Patient profiling

3. Health Advisory :

• Telemedicine helpline & facility

• GIS case Tracking on COVID-19 dashboard

• App for video consultation

• Online counseling for patients via app video calling  or helpline

4. Essential Services :

• Food and shelters to vulnerable people

• Emergency care

• Rapid Response team for redressal

• Online order for home delivery of grocery, meds

• Citizen portal for complaints/SOS.

Smart CITY MISSION, Government of INDIA

The Smart Cities Mission (SCM) of the Government of India, promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens, and a clean and sustainable environment and application of smart solutions.

Smart City Mission was launched on 25 June, 2015 by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi.

Key Objectives :

• To provide a fillip to the development of new and innovative smart solutions that directly impact the need of cities.

• To ensure availability of funding for practice research of direct relevance to the outcomes desired under the mission.

• To make available a large body of pilot-tested and proven and proven smart solutions that can be adopted by cities as per their specific needs.

• To promote a culture of innovation within the urban sector.

Smart Cities are use appropriate technologies for improving quality of lives of their Citizen. There is no fixed definition of a Smart City.  Our Smart Cities following Principles –

  1. Citizen at the core – Citizens and Communities are at the Centre of development.

      2. Being conscious of resource Constraints – generate more and use less resources like energy, finance and others.

     3. Cooperative and Competitive federalism – Cities are selected through healthy competition in two stage challenges at State and Central level.

    4. Technologies the Means, and Not the Goal – careful selection of technology, relevant to the context of particular cities, build around specific need of their communities is important for cities to work out solutions.

     5. Inclusiveness is a guiding Philosophy – Cities are for the people & hence they have to build around the principles of inclusiveness. Broadly, Smart Cities address three core issues –

·         Live-ability

·         Economic-ability

·         Sustain-ability

Finovation Era.

Core Infrastructure :

• Adequate Water supply,

• Assured electricity supply

• Sanitation, including solid waste management

• Efficient urban mobility and public transport

• Affordable housing, especially for the poor

• Robust IT connectivity and digitalisation

• Good governance, especially e-Governance and citizen participation

• Sustainable environment

• Safety and security of citizens particularly women, children and the elderly

• Health and Education.

The Smart City Proposals (SCPs) for participating in National level challenges -  

      Affordable Housing    

          Water & WasteWater Management

·         Sanitation

·         Safety & Security

·         Health & Education

·         Energy Security

      

These aspects are linked to how citizens rate the quality of life in the city.

City-wise Smart Solutions (at least One) –

    1.      Electronic Service Delivery

    2.   Intelligent Traffic Management Systems

    3.      Smart Metering & Management

     4. Integrated Multi-modal Transport Systems

    5.      Video Crime Monitoring

    6.      Smart Governance

Smart City Mission Strategy – Broadly Two-fold Strategy –

    1.   Area Base Development – Development of world class localities within cities to act as replicable model through redevelopment, green-development &

   2. Pan City Development – Use of digital technologies to create impact on basic infrastructure and services an intent to improve quality of life for their Citizen.

Smart Cities Mission Evolution–

100 Smart Cities have been selected across all States And Union Territories (UT`s) of India. Selection done by Four different rounds.

“Smart Cities are the aspiration of over 1.30 billion citizens of our country. These are the sites where the URBAN RENAISSANCE of India will be collectively envisioned & executed. It is envisioned that by 2022, the 75^th year of its Independence, India`s Cities should have scientifically planned and aesthetically designed settlements and public spaces providing spacious, safe & secure environments live, work, play, & recreate”.

Impacts of Smart Cities –

·         Public Bike Sharing Project – Coimbatore, Bhopal, Pune helping the sustainable transport agenda that may create greener and healthier cities.

·         Intelligent Traffic Management – e.g. in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vizag.

·         Smart Water Management – Ahmedabad is driving efficiency in use of scarce resource through SCADA implementation saving tax payer money.

·         Smart Classroom Project – NDMC, Kakinada, Jabalpur transforming school to better learning and regular training teachers.

·         Heritage Conservation Projects – Surat, Indore, Bhuvneshwar linking citizen to their heritage and create in them a pride their history.

There are many more impacts of smart cities in our country.

Biggest Challenges of Smart City Mission ~

* Regulation: The issues of legal Framework in the stage of Smart City Mission. There is a need statutory bodies to provide quick approval so that no resources and time goes waste.

* Governances: There is lack of effective coordination between Central government, State government and Local government.

* Funding: Lack of funding for the development of a smart cities. The contribution of funds by the Central government, State government and many Private firms, but it required to be in proper process.

* Technology: Some borrowed technologies more expensive this hinders the success of Smart City project. There is adopting new technology is also a challenges.

* Infrastructure: There is lack of water supply connection (almost 50% urban area) & sewage is also a big issue.

* Master Plan: Most Cities in India do not have master plan. There is lack of implementation & encapsulation of the Smart City Project.

* Corruption: It is root cause challenges. Both at the Centre and State level corruption is responsible for all the coordination mismatch and time lag happening. There is an effective execution of most project in the country.

* Growing Slums in the cities are one of the big issue.

Smart Solutions of Cities –

e-Governance & Citizen Services –

·         *Governance citizens friendly & cost effective.

·         *Bring about accountability and transparency.

·        * Use online monitoring of programs.

Waste Management –

·         *Waste to energy and fuel

·         *Waste to compost

·         *Waste water to be treated

·        * Recycling and reduction of waste

Water Management –

·        * Smart meter and management

·         *Leakage identification

·         *Water quality monitoring

Urban Mobility –

        * Smart parking

        *Intelligent traffic management

      * Intelligent multi-modal transport

Energy Management –

·        * Smart meter 

       *Renewal source of energy

·         *Energy efficiency and green buildings

Others

·         *Tele-medicine and tele-education.

·         *Trade facilitation centers.

·         *Skill development centers.

Developing the Smart Cities with the all positive interpretation like integrating smarter technologies with their economic development and public service plans and considering how technology or use of data might help them achieve existing objective more effectively. Focusing on pragmatic approaches. Adopting a participatory approach to setting and delivering strategies and initiatives.