Smart Cities – Transforming India

In order to take the pressure off the metropolitan cities, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced 100 Indian smart cities by 2022. The Smart City initiative runs on the ground of new technologies like IoT, M2M integration, Big Data and analytics and empowers government and authorities to offer better services to the citizens

- Preeti Gaur

India has witnessed major urbanization, with an estimated 30 people leaving rural India for urban areas every minute during the next 20 years. This burdens the existing cities with traffic jams, overcrowding, pollution, resource constraints, inadequate infrastructure, and the need for continuing economic growth. At this rate, the country will need some 500 new cities in the next two decades. Cities and urban developments will need to use innovative technologies and solutions to manage the accelerating demands on city infrastructures that deliver vital services.

Cities need to be developed in a planned fashion to optimally utilize space and other resources. The Indian ‘SmartCity’ is an initiative by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take the pressure off Indian metros. Ahead of general election last year, Modi had promised 100 smart cities by 2022 to help meet the increasing rush towards

the metros.

A smart city is a self-sustaining unit that utilizes various resources such as energy, water, transportation, healthcare, security, etc., in an efficient and effective manner. It exploits the true power of emerging technologies like IoT, Big Data and Analytics, SMAC, process automation etc., in order to deliver better services to the citizens. Big data and analytics used for deeper insights; Cloud for collaboration among different departments; Mobile for data collection; and Social technologies for better engagement with citizens. The focus is on using the network to deploy digitally enabled transportation, healthcare, education, utilities, energy grid and real estate in cities.

The government has already started with a few e-governance initiatives such as m-passport, e-aadhar, Smart Surveillance, FIR kiosks etc.

The innovative solutions for Smart Cities have the following benefits for the governments as well as the citizens:

•    Reduction in energy consumption, cost, and maintenance

•    Better control and monitoring of law and order situation across the city

•    Better traffic management and reduction in the number of accidents

•    Enhancing situational awareness, real-time collaboration, and decision making across city agencies

•    Enabling the use of intelligent Internet of Everything (IoE), utilities, public safety, and environmental monitoring

Setting up smart technology in areas like water, power and transport takes longer for cities that were not built keeping technology advancement in mind. But greenfield cities coming up in and around metros—like Palava in Mumbai, the ones in Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor, Dholera in Gujarat, Shengda and Dighi in Maharashtra—have great potential as smart cities, as technology can go hand-in-hand with building the city.

Read on to know the progress across different cities

so far:

Naya Raipur

Naya Raipur is the new capital city of Chhattisgarh.  Located between National Highways NH-6 and NH-4, it is being developed as a Smart City. High quality of its infrastructure, economic, social, cultural and technical, would ensure high quality of life for its citizens. Naya Raipur Development Authority (NRDA) is the nodal agency undertaking comprehensive development of this Greenfield & City.

The Capitol Complex (Rajdhani Parisar) will serve as the Nerve Center of the State Administration. The construction work is completed and the unit is completely functional. It centrally controls and monitors the actions of the local bodies through smart communications solutions.

The city is expected to house about 4.5 lakh people in the next ten years. In order to promote sense of security and comfort among its citizens, especially women, children and the physically challenged, authorities will use smart Surveillance technologies. These technologies capture real-time data and reduce response time of agencies thereby enforcing law and order and preventing crime.

The city utilizes LED street lighting that has already been completed for a stretch of 58 kms. It has led to reduction in energy consumption by 40% approximately.

Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT)

Gujarat International Finance Tec-City or GIFT is an under-construction central business district in the state of Gujarat. It is planned as a financial Central Business District (CBD) between Ahmedabad and Gandhi Nagar as a greenfield development. It will be built on 886 acres (3.59 km2) of land. The prime objective behind this is to provide world-class infrastructure (electricity, water, gas, district cooling, roads, telecoms and broadband), to the finance and tech firms. The supportive environment will invite firms from cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Gurgaon etc. where infrastructure is either inadequate or very expensive, to relocate and carry operations from GIFT. GIFT plans to attract the top industry talents by offering the finest quality of life all with integrated townships, IFSC and multi speciality Special Economic Zone (SEZ). State-of-the-art connectivity, infrastructure and transportation access have been integrated into the design of the city. The site is 12 km from the Ahmedabad International Airport and 8 km from Gandhi Nagar.

The Government has completed land acquisition of 673 acres of land for this project. Currently, two 29-floor commercial towers have been completed with development of truck infrastructure now underway for further development. Works like four lane road, gutter line, water, I.T. broadband cables and power installations are also underway.

GIFT is an example of ‘Intelligent Urbanization’. It includes efficient, safe and smart buildings. Following are the key features of the city:

•    Provide a technologically advanced financial services gateway to national & global financial markets,

•    Integrated Surveillance System for safety & security through Command Centre,

•    Efficient operation and management of the building services including regular maintenance of all the services & facilities,

•    Use of GIS platform for monitoring of services,

•    Immediate Emergency Response for Disaster/Crisis Management,

•    Spelling out the company name in 100 foot text using the office lighting, and

•    Functions including lighting, heating, ventilation, scene sets, unit failures and potential / likely failure for monitoring a building with the help of:

-    Interface of all services,

-    Complete control of temperature/light,

-    Information records for utility usage,

-    Door locking control,

-    Emergency and escape route lighting control

-    Remote vacant area/building monitoring and control,

-    Lighting and daylight (blind) control,

-    Automatic presence sense lighting,

-    Room temperatures control based on core usage, motion control for ventilation/air conditioning.

Bengaluru

Asia’s first end-to-end (Internet of Things-IoT) Innovation Hub is being developed in Bengaluru. Cisco has collaborated with the Electronics City Industries Association (ELCIA) to establish the foundation for a new ecosystem to help Electronic System Design & Manufacturing (ESDM) companies and other companies of electronic city engaged in IoT product development.

Through the ‘Living Lab’, spread over 5 km in E-City, ESDM start-ups and other electronic city companies can build solutions for City Infrastructure Management (CIM) including Smart Parking, Smart CCTV Surveillance, Smart Street Lighting, Smart Water Management/Leak Detection and Community Messaging.

The project utilizes the Cisco Smart+ConnectedCity WiFi solution that enables community Wi-Fi services and allows access to public utility offerings. ELCIA will also embed Cisco network equipment comprising of access points, routers, switches, and other required hardware and software applications that will be connected to the smart city’s fibre-optic backbone network. The Smart+ConnectedCity solution portfolio includes remote access to government services as well as City Infrastructure Management solutions for connected parking, traffic, and safety and security. The E-City has over 185 companies spread over 750 acres.

Bengaluru City Police (BCP) also offers Remote Expert Government Services’ (REGS) to help citizens file a First Information Report (FIR) remotely, irrespective of the location of the jurisdiction where the offence has occurred in the city. This kiosk serves as the central location for FIRs related to 105 law & order police stations and 42 traffic police stations of the city. Equipped with Cisco TelePresence system with high-definition video and high-quality audio; a touch screen, virtual keyboard and Cisco collaboration technology, the kiosk allows citizens to launch a live collaboration session with a designated police officer based at the Traffic Management Centre - the technology nerve centre of Bengaluru traffic police.

Palava (Mumbai)

The Palava city spanning 4,000 acres is under construction as a planned city that is expected to be completed in 2025. It is one of the largest-ever private, completely planned urban development in India. Being done by the Lodha Group under a franchisee agreement with Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Co. Ltd, the smart city project will cost Rs.14,000 crore. At present, there are over 3,000 families already living in Palava. The city is expected to house over 100,001 families and create approximately 350,000 jobs through its business district and commercial developments.

General Electric Co., will work with the Lodha Group for 100% water recycling, and automated water metering and billing to ensure transparency and zero water loss. Over 500 surveillance cameras will be installed to capture real-time data. The smart surveillance will support facial recognition for entry and have panic alarms every 200 meters in near future. The citizens of Palava will get smart cards for cashless transactions at retail centers, access to bus service, public Wi-Fi within the city’s premises, building and commercial entry points, and information access from the Palava experience centre.

Lodha group has partnered with IBM to build and manage Palava’s smart city infrastructure. Smart City solutions will enable Palava to go beyond ‘smart instrumentation’ and be an intelligent city by integrating different service areas such as energy, water, transportation, public safety and smart cards with a central command and control centre. This centre will monitor the key city systems and take coordinated action to handle any disruptions or emergency situations in the city. This will also enable the use of Big Data Analytics enabling the city to predict and prevent issues that could affect quality of life, ranging from traffic congestion to emergencies.

Navi Mumbai

Navi Mumbai was developed as a planned township of Mumbai in 1972. It is now growing rapidly as a business hub in Maharashtra. In order to implement a holistic and integrated surveillance system in the city, the Government of Maharashtra deployed connected physical security solutions from Cisco. It implemented a video surveillance system to enhance the overall safety and security of the city, address concerns pertaining to likely violation of law and order, traffic violations, turnaround time for crime resolution and act as an aid to investigation. The solution included latest video surveillance and analytics technology which provide live camera updates and alerts and ensures that no security breaches are missed due to human error or oversight.

Part of the solution are IP based outdoor security cameras located across the city which have the ability to monitor, detect, alert and record attacks, theft, vehicular movement, human movement, etc. The video surveillance data from various cameras deployed at strategic locations in the city are stored, monitored and analyzed in a centralized control room. Intelligent reporting, Command and Control Engine & alert generation mechanisms enable faster and efficient decision making and help city authorities to put in place preventive security mechanisms as required.