Building Smart And Sustainable Cities For Future

“We have created integrated systems but how do we sustain that? We are changing citizen experience while creating smart cities. How do we attain environmental sustainability.” said Dr Lovneesh Chanana, VP, Digital Government, SAP, Asia Pacific & Japan at a panel discussion at the 7th Annual Smart Cities conclave and awards.

R V Game, Commissioner, Nashik Municipal Corporation talked about smart city developments. Nashik is a place of Kumbh Mela and the infrastructure to manage Kumbh Mela in the future is being considered. He said, “While planning, we are developing the command control centre and have got civic services online. We have also got a grievances system in place which has registered 68k complaints on the platform.” 

An integrated transport system through inputs from state government and the municipal corporation is planned and all these projects will later be integrated with the command control centre.  

Shadab Aslam, Additional CEO, Jhansi Smart City said, “Jhansi is the centre of tourism, but has water problem because of the rocky strata. We are working on rainwater harvesting, and have ramped up the process. The solar pilot projects will be used for schools, and the remaining for street lights. We are working on ICCC, and clean energy has become a necessity because of the population in India, and will have more disastrous effects.” 

Swati Bhadauria, DM of Chamoli talked about the smart city being a tourism destination, and that is a challenge because we need to channelize the problems, and then find a solution to them. She said, “The city faces ecological problems, and they have come up with sensor-based solutions. Rail connectivity is underway, and have roped in Austrian people as technical partners for tunneling, and have incorporated smart blast solutions.” 

T N Mishra, Nodal Officer of Moradabad Municipal Corporation said, “When we were planning, there were 2 challenges. We are known as a brass city. The artisans working were facing challenges from cheaper China products, and moving out. Our challenge was to keep the artisans intact. We also have a lot of environmental challenges. We have planned Rs 1500 crore projects, and are at the implementation stage. The speed of change is slow. For changing human behaviour, we need to understand the psyche. Without revenue, you cannot sustain any project. In case, we keep to keep these projects sustainable, we will have to go for a behavioural change from people.” 

Musharraf Ali Faruqui, Addl. Commissioner, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation said, “We add and remove a city size on a daily basis. We have taken up aspects like road transport, which was done digitally, and efforts were made to identify corridors, and remove the roadblocks. Each of these is planned in a meticulous way and planned for the next 20 years. We are planning skyways. Solid waste management is on the fast track. Basic infra does exist, and we are trying to build a master database and everything is centralised and will help us in having central policies.”