The way to a smart city

While urban local bodies have been managing affairs since long, the advent of digital technology has enabled urban planners and managers to have a better understanding of civic problems and seek better solutions to age-old problems as well as to new challenges.

With this in mind, the Smart Cities Mission was launched by the Prime Minister on 25 June, 2015. The objective is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure, clean and sustainable environment and give a decent quality of life to their citizens through the application of ‘smart solutions’. 

The mission aims to drive economic growth and improve quality of life through comprehensive work on social, economic, physical and institutional pillars of the city. The focus is on sustainable and inclusive development by creation of replicable models which act as lighthouses to other aspiring cities. One hundred cities have been selected to be developed as Smart Cities through a two-stage competition.

The parameters to judge a smart include digital metering devices for utilities, digitization of data, data-analysis and e-governance. Smart healthcare, smart traffic management, smart diagnosis of civic problems etc make for an exciting way ahead.

For instance, the functions integral to the working of a city are performed by different government line departments, private sector, community organizations, and academic institutions through provision of infrastructure, services, research, co-creation and valuable feedback. Data available with these entities remains in silos, which needs to be unlocked and shared amongst them. Thus, to unleash the power of urban data for transformation it is crucial to unlock it and make it the common language of collaboration in the urban ecosystem. Therefore to unlock this potential, DataSmart Cities initiative was conceptualized to successfully Institutionalize a “Culture of data”, Drive Data Governance and policy formulation, Promotion of Data Sharing and Exchange, Promotion of Multi-disciplinary research to thereby achieve Co-Creation, Open Innovation and empowerment of citizens.

Thane city was recently included in the top 10 cities out of 100 cities in the country in the "Open Data Week" competition organized under the Smart Cities Mission of the Government of India.

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