India Hopes High On Smart Cities

A two-day Smart Cities Summit 2015, organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in New Delhi, brought in diverse ideas for Prime Minister Narendra Modi government's ambitious Smart City project. This project is expected to transform the Indian urban landscape. Government and industry representatives discussed plans adopted by states, cities and urban local bodies, implementation challenges, and business opportunities for solution providers. The event also had case studies and experiences, shared by Indian and foreign urban sector professionals towards building smart cities.

In the inaugural address, Union Minister of Urban Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, M Venkaiah Naidu, said that the government would announce the first batch of 20 cities to begin the smart city work in January 2016.

“We need cities that can sustain themselves through judicious use of precious and scarce natural resources ensuring ecologic al equilibrium,” Naidu said, adding the government has taken various steps to ensure effective implementation of the project. He also promised to table the much awaited Real Estate Regulation Bill in the next session of Parliament and to implement various other reform measures that are in the pipeline.

Speaking at the event, Dr Nandita Chatterjee, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, said the government is streamlining approval procedures for residential projects.

The progress of this project, which was launched by PM Modi on June 25, 2015 along with two other major urban development programs such as Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Housing for All by 2022, is being keenly watched by global players. Domestically, the response has been huge. Interestingly, the common man came out on streets for the cause of their city's claim for the smart city tag.

Global companies from 14 countries have been selected to partner with this mission. Moreover, as many as 88 mission cities have chosen consultants to prepare the city plan. The delegates at the summit looked at various models of international smart city projects. They drew lessons from the smart city projects in Songdo (South Korea), Yokohama (Japan), New York (United States of America), Munich (Germany), and various other cities.

Another key discussion at the event revolved around methods of drafting holistic smart city plans. The speakers asserted the need to develop these cities with sustainable and multi-modal public transport system. The discussion had a range of topics including institutional and financial models of city development, waste and water management solutions to use of smart technology in these new urban landscapes, among others.

Giving a sense of how India dreams of its new cities, Adarsh Shastri, the man who has been entrusted by the Delhi government to make the national capital a Wi-Fi city said the government was working on technology to provide a single access card to pay for all modes of public transport in Delhi and to develop an app to provide real time information on transport options and the traffic in the city.

Speaking on behalf of the industry, Dr Subhash Chandra, Chairman, Essel Group & Zee Network, said that smart cities were run on smart technologies and needed smart people to run these operations. Signalling the way forward, FICCI President Jyotsna Suri said that FICCI has created an Urban Infrastructure and Smart Cities Committee. The objective of this committee is to forge partnership between Centre and industry to develop smart cities.

As India rests a lot of its hope on smart cities to accommodate its fast growing urban population and to attract investment, policy makers, urban consultants, academia, technology providers, and various other stakeholders are expected to deliberations on the smart city project in the coming days is expected.