Jan 25, 20212 min read

Target is to develop more than 4,372 cities as smart cities: Housing Secy DS Mishra

Stating that the smart cities concept does not have a single dimension of focusing on just big or small cities, Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, has said that the target is to develop more than 4,372 cities as smart cities.

“Our target is to develop our 4,372 cities, along with other cities, like smart cities. To make this happen, cities should use their land, resources, local people, and skills to move on a different path,” he said at the virtual 4th Smart Cities Summit & 2nd Smart Urban Innovation Awards, organized by FICCI in the Capital.

He said that the learning of one city chosen under 100 smart cities should be spread to other cities so that it becomes a lighthouse. “We need to focus on ensuring that these lighthouses help other cities become smart and that the government is working to standardize these learnings.”

He said that the smart cities concept does not have a single dimension of focusing on just big or small cities; any city can become a smart city. “Every city will have its own path of smartness. Employability, sustainability and liveability are the core things on which the cities move,” he added

Smart cities have played a very important role in dealing with the COVID-induced crisis.

Many of the smart cities effectively used their Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCC) for city’s operations management as COVID-19 War Rooms for analysing city-specific data, coordinating activities of various state, city agencies and connecting with citizens.

Using the data collected through various sensors and smart solutions, cities carried out data modelling and predictive analytics, creating dashboards, scenario visualization and simulation models to analyse the virus spread and plan their response.

“There were 49 working Integrated Command and Control Centres, which has now increased to 53 and 30 more will be added in the forthcoming months. It is not only the technology but how technology is impacting the livelihood of citizens which is important,” said Mishra.

Other experts said that as a growing number of cities have begun their urban transformation, there is an emerging trend of using human-centric and cloud-based technologies to automate and integrate urban services. “Such technologies are resulting in significant data generation that can be further used to effective urban development,”