Today, the smart city has become a blind race across the world. Let’s discuss the concept of a smart city in India. The idea of becoming smart has increased in India too. The Modi government plans to build 100 smart cities with a cost of Rs 7,000 crore. To be invested. But can the urban life of the country be made better and dignified by the use of technology? Read the whole investigation.
What smart city would you like to live in? Where effective urban system is always active in the background and least burden on you? Factories automatically catch and fix malfunctions, keep a watch on medical equipment and needs from a hospital remotely, and will the lights and heat in the hotels change at your convenience?
For many of us, who flick their mobile to find out the information of a song or are using smart thermostats in homes, it is not far-fetched. But for those who are struggling for a life of honor in cities, it is nothing less than a dream or a magical world. In Indian cities, about one-fourth of the population lives in slums. In Mumbai only about half of the population lives in slums. Due to the increasing population pressure on land and housing, piped drinking water supply and drainage, forced to make informal agreements. That is why, even a tech savvy city like Bangalore is facing difficulty in execution of its waste. In these circumstances, a smart city can be a distant dream.
In smart cities or concept of a smart city in India , technology and data mixes improve decisions about civic amenities. The city of Masdar in the United Arab Emirates, Sangdo in South Korea and Planiti Valley in Portugal are planned as such energy-efficient, technology-intensive islands. There is such a system of sensors and cameras that monitors houses, roads, public places, vehicles and issues service instructions when necessary.
Of course, not like them, but the use of smart devices has started in most big cities. For example, in Rio de Janeiro’s IBM-run operations center, a screen is mounted on the entire wall, on which information from 560 cameras keeps coming and their live broadcasts keep the officials aware. It has a weather forecasting system and a smart map capable of analyzing 60 levels of data coming from across the city. In its goal of becoming a ‘smart nation’ with the help of intelligent infrastructure, Singapore has today taken the lead in creating applications related to urban traffic that can be used worldwide. Today, many experiments are also being done to optimize the traffic signal system in Mumbai.
Plans and Roadmap
Today, the smart city has become like a blind race which is influencing policies everywhere in the world. The idea of becoming smart has increased in India too. The Narendra Modi government plans to build 100 smart cities with a cost of Rs 7,000 crore. To be invested. This work will be done in private and international cooperation. But the central government is taking a very practical approach instead of getting caught in air jumbo, because it realizes that urbanization has reached a historic stage in India today. While coining the word ‘smart’, the government has probably included mandatory reforms in the institutional and physical structure within its scope.
The concept of smart city in India and paper of the Ministry of Urban Development calls for enabling more investment in selected cities, where better housing, 24-hour power and water supply, sanitation, clean air, education, health, safety, recreation, sports and transport facilities Should be It mentions smart grids, Medicity and incubators for starting new enterprises, including the use of information-communication technology in administration. Obviously, there will be more participation from technology and private companies, but this is not at the center of the plan.
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Urban Development Secretary Shankar Aggarwal explained the Smart City at the recently held LSE Urban Edge Conference in Delhi, “Only technology can bring big changes. You look at any society that has made great progress. We have excellent talent in engineering and software, so why not exploit them for our cities and the common man? ”Says Jagan Shah, director of the National Institute of Urban Affairs, which is helping the government implement the scheme There are no two opinions about using technology for services, such as the use of RFID in waste, better measles accounts, traffic monitoring, etc. Yoga. It can also be a way to get information about the functioning of the city and government so that more evidence based decisions can be taken and social programs can be decided on the basis of them. ”
Shah talks of an approach that can help cities to use their economic capabilities better and with which they can get resources and new ideas from the center, state, industrial groups and civil society. They believe that this task will not be so easy because in our case decision making, urban bodies have very little authority. He says, “But how do we change this fear in expectation, that is our challenge.”
The government is aware of the risk of creating new cities due to lack of resources, which is why the center is planning to add a level of information to existing cities only. Although the use of smart cities is going on all over the country. Integrated smart infrastructure is being developed for new cities coming up around the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, Dholera SIR in Gujarat, Shendra in Maharashtra and Manesar in Haryana. Some municipal bodies have entered into agreements with private companies to digitize the process of providing services.
‘Solutions’ Business
Companies like IBM, Cisco, Siemens and Microsoft, which provide ideas, maps and hardware for this work, have a far more grand vision of the future.
A video from the IBM uses animated videos to understand the traffic system, showing a city with bright points that move quickly around a grid. The voice-over explains how a huge amount of data is being collected from octroi, traffic patterns, eyewitnesses, fares, meters and cameras, after which it is classified into different departments and agencies and how A smart city will use these information for improvement.
Siemens has built a city in the form of a cockpit which is a “one-time support system of management, information and decisions” that can monitor the functioning of traffic, environment, finance and other areas.
Anil Menon, director of Smart Plus Connected Communities at Cisco, says, “After global IT and engineering services, India may see a boom in global public services.” He explains how it has already started. For example, hospitals in the United States are using India’s services for medical examination and diagnosis, or rich farmers seek investment advice from a remote place. He explains that Cisco has developed a digital architecture that works with service providers either on a revenue sharing basis or at a fee, or can provide a complete solution.
The company, which builds and operates circuits, switches, collaboration suites and cloud services, also runs a consulting center that helps city administrators identify their needs and prepare funds. Menon explains, “For example, we have started a pilot project in collaboration with the Bangalore Police to set up kiosks in a mall where FIRs can be recorded electronically. Take another example, how parking can be made easier. For this, it is necessary to have just one application on your mobile phone which will tell where the empty space is. This will save you from the hassle of searching for a parking space and less jam.
Smart what works
These new beliefs promise that crimes can be identified first, accidents will be prevented, energy can be saved and urban life will be made easier. Shrivats Krishna, Secretary in the Department of Information Technology, Biotechnology and E-Governance in the Government of Karnataka, says, “Anything that looks good in a power point or in a lab or in a building does not necessarily work for one crore people.” “Technology is not a good or bad thing in itself. Its effect is determined by its social use. It is up to the policy-makers of cities what tools they will use for new ideas.
Ricky Burdett, professor and director of urban studies at LSE Cities, asks, “What Indian cities need, I would appreciate if the idea of a truly smart city can be achieved.” There are some basic conditions of urban life — access to health, housing and work. Can the technology that we are talking about solve it? He says that where the sewage system is provided only to 30 per cent of the urban people, policy-makers should carefully prioritize. It is more important to deal with the real challenges related to mass migration, proper use of land, water and waste management, traffic.
Chairperson of the Center for Policy Research, former Urban Development Secretary K.C. Sivaramakrishnan believes that there may be a need to improve the services but we should not get caught in the craze about the system of delivering them but to ensure that the work is actually being done. He says, “Earlier in Chennai, Amla used to go to homes to collect house tax and get the form filled. Now that work is being done with equipment. That is, nothing fundamentally changed. In Surat, the commissioner is given information about garbage disposal and water supply every day – instead of technology, the officers could do it themselves.” In his view, the use of information technology will not be a big deal. The real thing is how real we set our goals.
Trust smart citizens
Many people have raised serious objections to the smart cities. For example, in a country where the matter of protecting privacy is already so weak, are we prepared to have a web of sensors and cameras constantly recording us and companies and administrators silently gathering information about us? There is every possibility that the police and investigative agencies will use these technology facilities to prevent crime or terrorism. But it is also not less likely that people’s personal information can be used without their prior consent or information. Take the same incident of the previous days where CCTV cameras of Delhi Metro were used to defame the lovers and make obscene clippings. In cities, we come in search of freedom and privacy protection, use of technology can also make it a trap.
Moreover, nothing can be said conditionally about the use of technology and the needs of the city cannot be captured in the program beforehand. Adam Greenfield, an urban affairs scholar and author of the book Against the Smart City (The City is Hair for You to Use), says, “Technology moves faster than cities — if you apply technology in 2012, by 2016 it will It will be outdated. ” Greenfield and some other people are worried about such unconventional ways of controlling urban life.
However, he is also not so pessimistic about the use of technology as it will ultimately be useful for disclosing information about civilian life, as is being seen now. Says Greenfield, “You won’t need to pay for maintenance and renewal by installing sensors and processors. Look at apps like StreetBump, which use GPS and accelerometers to tell where the crater is on your phone. ” He says that technology should be kept open to citizens, rather than tying them to a banded system, The devices should be connected to each other and people should also have complete control over their data. According to Greenfield, “Free Wi-Fi can be a smart and public-facing technology.”
In this regard, smartphones are undoubtedly tools with which to achieve many such goals. For example, in Bangalore, if someone sees a bad street light or finds a pit, he can send his picture from his smartphone to the Karnataka Mobile One app, from where this information reaches the engineers. Property tax, paying consumer fees or booking tickets are also possible with the help of USSD (unstructured supplementary service data) by phone, even simple phone.
Sreevatsa Krishna says, “Mobile is digital and modular” which gives people the option to use their discretion or else they may just be consumers between closed walls. He says, “The engines of smart cities will be smart people and their ideas to build local services will make the city smart.” An initiative like Code for Karnataka is a significant effort towards directing such energy.
Let cities think for themselves
This debate takes the form of philosophical arguments at one point between the advocates of this ambitious and all-encompassing plan of the smart city (You should visit Dholera Smart City) and the proponents of meeting the needs of a city internally at a small level. Sociologist and urban affairs scholar Richard Sennett recounted his experience of a state-of-the-art control room, where technical experts were understanding how traffic could be reduced by connecting the two points. To this, the mayor asked, “But how can we cut the occupants in these areas in half?” In explaining his example, Sennett says that city planning should be socially smart, not just a matter of minimum distance between two points. is. They ask, “How will technology determine its speed according to the conditions of life of people, not according to the conditions seen on a map?”
Although the form of the central government’s plan is still in its infancy, it gives cities the right to decide their own priorities. The result will decide who will have the right to choose — local government, civic groups or private consultants. Gerald Froog, a professor of law at Harvard, says that smart cities need smart states. According to the 74th amendment to the Constitution of India, a provision was made to give political power to cities, but it was thwarted.
Most cities cannot raise their own revenue and manage their works. Some thinkers had talked about electing mayors in cities, some states have this, but more importantly, the city administration should be given greater financial autonomy — and there are many ways that the Center can encourage this independence. The Goods and Services Tax amendment to be implemented in the near future can prove to be an opportunity in the matter of giving more freedom to the urban administration. As Frug says, “To be smart, cities need to be given a brain that can make decisions on its own rather than follow orders like a robot.”
If India is serious about smart cities, then cities should be provided with enough capabilities so that they can think for themselves and work accordingly. The concept of smart cities is very very rich.
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