The first question that arises in our
mind is, what exactly is a smart city?
Well, there is no particular
definition for smart city. The definition of smart city varies from person to
person, cities to cities and country to country depending on the development
and willingness to change and aspirations of the residents. Smart city has
different goals in India as compared to other countries, say USA or Singapore.
Smart city is represented through four pillars:
institutional, social, physical and economic infrastructure.
The 2nd smart city
conference was recently held in Delhi at Pragati Maidan, and we as INLEADers
got a chance to be a part of the insightful conference. During the conference,
we came to know about the entire Smart city project and how it aims to make 100
cities smart. The main focus area of this conference was water and waste
management, environment, IT & communications, security and safety, disaster
management, smart education, smart health, smart multi- model transport, clean
energy, smart building.
Mr. Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu (Railway Minister of India). According to him, “there are two
important things that should be maintained - natural resources and energy.” He
said that under the smart city project stations will be redeveloped and that
the people would get smart railways.
The other speaker was Shri Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (IC)
for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy. He mainly focused on three
issues energy, waste and water. According to him “people’s participation is another
main ingredient to make the smart city project sustainable.” He also talked
about segregation of the waste material, smart meters that will update the
status of water usage in a house, power costs which can be reduced to 83% by
the use of LED bulbs. This way India can save Rs.6.5 billion per year.
Definition of smart city stated by him “anything you do to improve the
lifestyle of people.”
Commenting on the expo,
Ravinder Pal Singh, Director, Solutions Strategy & Business Development,
(IoT, Smart Cities & Digitization) Dell India, said “smart
work has to be done in order to improve the technology. And has to have open
architecture and scalability.” For smart city, people also have to become smart
and consider that it is their duty to keep their city clean as their houses. He
also said that government should keep record of everything. One example he
cited was of GIS meter which is used to control water flowing.
Meenakshi
Lekhi (Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, India) pointed some very important facts
in order make a city smart and sustain it. As, in terms of financial structure,
utility based model, waste management model, water management, education
system, infrastructure. She said that without making any strategy regarding
these terms, the goal of making cities as smart city cannot be achieved.
To
demonstrate huge international interest towards India’s mission of Smart
Cities, the expo hosted 4 individual countries Holland, Poland, Sweden, and
Taiwan and participants from 40 other countries.
H.E.
Mr. Chung-Kwang Tien (Ambassador to India, Embassy of Taiwan) gave example of some of the
technology and facts about Taiwan which might be introduced in India as well
such as “smart
water meter” which gives the information about water quality and its usage.
Also the information is connected to cloud for easily access. Other example was
of usage of LED in traffic lights. Thus Taiwan will help India in terms of
technology.
H.E.
Mr. Harald Sandberg (Ambassador to India, Embassy of Sweden) focused on renewable energy and
sustainable urban development. He also gave the information that 15 Swedish
companies are participating in smart city project to work in areas of solar
energy, water, traffic, parking, biogas, etc.
The
three-day expo comprised an exhibition with 325 national and international
companies showcasing trends and technologies for integrated smart city
management. The exhibiting companies include leading multinationals to
innovative start-ups - Dell International, Xerox, Ericsson, 3M India,
Berger Paints, Godrej Security, Grundfos Pumps, Millenium Semiconductor, Tata
Projects, Volvo, Yamaha, etc.
offering solutions for smart cities India.
I heard out all speakers and found
myself agreeing with all of them at some level. Going further, we the future of
our country, should be closely associated with the concept of Smart Cities. The
future lies in technological innovation, and what better way than participating
in your own country’s technological evolution.
Rashi Agarwal
Student, INLEAD
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