Smart City
A smart city uses information and communication
technologies (ICT) to enhance quality, performance and interactivity of
urban services, to reduce costs and resource consumption and to improve
contact between citizens and government.
What is Smart City?
The first question is what is meant by a ‘smart city’. The answer is,
there is no universally accepted definition of a smart city. It means
different things to different people. The conceptualisation of Smart
City, therefore, varies from city to city and country to country,
depending on the level of development, willingness to change and reform,
resources and aspirations of the city residents. A smart city would
have a different connotation in India than, say, Europe. Even in India,
there is no one way of defining a smart city.
Some definitional boundaries are required to guide cities in the
Mission. In the imagination of any city dweller in India, the picture of
a smart city contains a wish list of infrastructure and services that
describes his or her level of aspiration. To provide for the aspirations
and needs of the citizens, urban planners ideally aim at developing the
entire urban eco-system, which is represented by the four pillars of
comprehensive development-institutional, physical, social and economic
infrastructure. This can be a long term goal and cities can work towards
developing such comprehensive infrastructure incrementally, adding on
layers of ‘smartness’.
In the approach of the Smart Cities Mission, the objective is to
promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent
quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and
application of ‘Smart’ Solutions. The focus is on sustainable and
inclusive development and the idea is to look at compact areas, create a
replicable model which will act like a light house to other aspiring
cities. The Smart Cities Mission of the Government is a bold, new
initiative. It is meant to set examples that can be replicated both
within and outside the Smart City, catalysing the creation of similar
Smart Cities in various regions and parts of the country.
The core infrastructure elements in a smart city would include:
- 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 digitalization,
- Good governance, especially e-Governance and citizen participation,
- Sustainable environment,
- Safety and security of citizens, particularly women, children and the elderly, and
- Health and education. As far as Smart Solutions are concerned, an illustrative list is given below.
This is not, however, an exhaustive list, and cities are free to add more applications.
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