With smart city mission expanding on a faster pace and wider scale, global technology giants like Cisco, IBM and Bosch have shown keen interest in the establishment of smart city centres or integrated command and control system under the Centre’s flagship programme Smart City Mission, as quoted by the Hindu Business Line.
According to the housing and urban affairs ministry official, HP and Siemens are working to set up such a centre in Bhopal, while Bosch, Cisco, Efkon and Rolta are participating in the development of a ‘smart’ centre in Varanasi.
A senior official informed PTI as quoted in Hindu Business Line, “Honeywell’s expertise would be used for Bhubaneshwar, while Schneider, Cisco and HP would help in setting up of such a centre in Naya Raipur”. [Read the full report here]
Along with the mentioned global giants, leading Indian firms like Larsen and Toubro, Shapoorji Pallonji Group, Bharat Electronics Ltd, Tech Mahindra, have also come forward to give their bit to set up Smart City Centres.
As part of Modi government’s Smart City Mission, 99 cities have been chosen to be part of the project with the budget of Rs. 500 crore each.
As shared by the senior official, tenders have been called for 55 cities for setting up smart city centres which would cost an investment of Rs 5,300 crore. Works worth Rs 2,950 crore have already started in 23 cities.
It was reported that smart cities in eight cities including Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Pune, Nagpur, Rajkot, Visakhapatnam, and Kakinada have become operational. These cities are supervising various services at the centre including solid waste collection, smart street lights and transit management system. Along with monitoring these services, the centres also offer city-wide surveillance system to enable the administration and police department keep a watch on sensitive areas such as major traffic junctions and tourist places.
The efficiency of a smart city could be gauged by the example of the Diu smart city which becomes the first city in India to run on 100 per cent renewable energy during the daytime.
The city has developed a 9-MW solar park spread over 50 hectares rocky barren land, besides installing solar panels on the rooftops on 79 government buildings, generating 1.3 MW annually, informed the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry’s release.
The Ministry’s release also shared that Bengaluru Smart City is working on implementation of solution to improve traffic management, while Jaipur Smart City Ltd (JSCL) has planned to develop night bazaar at Chaura Rasta, in the heart of Pink city.
