INVC NEWS
A smart city can be defined as one which monitors and integrates critical infrastructure including roads, metro, airports, seaports and buildings. The smart city also include preventive maintenance activities including monitor security aspects while optimisingthe resources and providing best services to the citizens.Therefore, planning smart cities will require an understanding of the complex factors that shape our cities such as land,economic and social drivers, Indian values, environmental aspects, and infrastructure.Building smart cities involves immense planning and in which existing infrastructure is monitored and controlled, thus leading to sustainable development. As many cities lack basic infrastructure and governance, the smart city initiative includes a holistic vision/plan for the long term growth of the city – one which recognizes the assets of the city and brings together the various stakeholders to create a vision for future policies. The vision needs to be supported by short-term plans which are reviewed periodically to be in-line with the vision for implementation.As part of the vision to develop a smart city,planning norms should be developed which include more responsive land policies and development controls so that one can review FSI, density, land-useetc., includingmandatory guidelines for sustainability.
Planningof the smart cities not only involves building ever-expanding citieswithavailable resources, especially land. This can be achieved by developing vertical buildings to conserve land and be able to provide services/infrastructure in a concentrated area more efficiently compared to a spread out city, thus minimising operational losses. The unused land in the vertical cities can be developed into vibrant and public and civic spaces such as public parks, recreations spaces,etc. It also involves planning cities which integrate land-use planning and transportation, thus creatingmixed-usedistricts/neighbourhoods. The development of mixed-use districts not only have the advantage of shorter commute time but alsoencourageuse of public transportand sustainable developmentwhile discouraging use of private vehicles, thus promoting a much healthier lifestyle.The vertical city needs to bedeveloped with high quality public services, metros, personal rapid transit, potable water, sewerage, solid waste management, roads,etc. All these services should be backed up by an equally strong Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) so that they can be integrated and work as part of the system rather than independent systems.Using the ICT network city control,centres can be built which can unify all the services, reduces management cost, provide service convergence thatcan control city facilities in real-time and provide coordinated response during emergencies.
One of the important factor to keep in mind while developing smart cities is smart governance using the ICT networktoprovideall G2C services in a convenient and efficient manner. Currently, the citizens have to face numerous challenges to manage all the government to citizen interfaces.This willenhance the accountability, transparency and responsiveness to citizen’s needs andwillprovide cost-effective methods of service provision to government departments and agencies. It will also provide efficient and real-time MIS and EIS to all the government departments for better planning and forecasting, thus enabling government department to focus on their core functions and responsibilities.
Lastly, developing smart cities requires huge sums of investment which the government is not in a position to shell out the entire requirements. However, the government will be able to attract investment from the private sector and encourage citizen’s participation in the planning process and develop the vision for building of smart cities. Through proper vision and planning, smart cities can be developed to manage the complexity of urban livingwhile making the existing infrastructure robust and scalable.
