Smart City Projects in India - Engineering a Better Tomorrow

In current Indian real estate scenario, the concept of smart city has gained real importance. Recent announcement of 100 smart cities in the union budget for 2016-17 financial year reveal the government's vision for a more connected and integrated society. The prevailing government has allocated about 3,205 Cr rupees for 'Smart Cities' mission to spur socio-economic growth in the nation.

As per estimates, every minute 25-30 people migrate from rural to urban areas in search of good jobs and good lifestyles. To accommodate the increasing influx in the cities, the government has planned to leverage ongoing technological advances for building comprehensive infrastructure that support social and economic growth. With increased urbanization, these urban Indian cities will accommodate more population and add to the nation's total GDP.

Smart cities are infused with new vision and smart way of working as well as living. These cities will benefit everybody in the nation, including businesses, citizens, the government and the environment. In context to smart cities, PM Narendra Modi said that earlier cities were built on  river banks and now along the highways. But in the future, they will built on the availability of optical fiber network i.e. intercom connectivity and next generation infrastructure.   

Hence the government is working on implementing more effective plans to provide improved  infrastructure and connect rural areas with high speed Internet connectivity. Some of the smart cities that are currently being developed in the country include namely, Kochi Smart City, Naya Raipur in Chhattisgarh, Lavasa in Maharashtra, GIFT (Gujarat International Finance Tec-City) in Ahmedabad and a 4,500-acre smart city by Wave Infratech near New Delhi are already.

The nation also invites foreign collaborations in developing India's major growth corridors, especially its metropolis. At present, industrial corridors between Delhi-Mumbai, Chennai-Bangalore and Bangalore Mumbai are witnessing rapid real estate development. These areas will be recreated as new smart cities along the corridors. The key factors focused in the projects are

Online Infrastructure: The government is striving to provide digitally connected society increasing Internet connectivity. This initiative of the government will help people in accessing all kinds of services, including government services on a single click of mouse. The newly invited “WiFi trash can” technique will enable urban planning that includes smart, IT connectivity cities.

Civic Amenities: More emphasis is laid on improving water & electricity supply and sanitation & waste management in most cities. More smart health-care centers and smart education facilities are coming up in the area as a part of the advancement.

Smooth Connectivity: Infrastructure upgradations taking place in different cities ensure flawless transportation and hassle free commutation across the areas. Well connected roads, flyovers, metro connectivity etc will surely reduce travel time in smart cities.

Smart Habitat: As smart cities will work on e-devices hence buildings which are coming up are likely to have wireless connectivity, smart security & surveillance system, along with many more advanced features. Most construction projects are as per Indian Green Building Council and these use quality green materials as well as technologies such as rain water harvesting, solar heating etc. to create Eco-friendly spaces for your living.

Hence smart cities with superior infrastructure and convenient mass transit are seen as a transition towards greater sustainability and smartness, ensuring more efficient, friendly services and sustainable development conferring better life to citizens.

Update 24th May, 2016:

Union Urban Development minister, Mr. M Venkaiah Naidu has announced names of 13 new cities that has been selected amongst the 23 cities which sent in their proposals for the smart city scheme race. Final cities chosen for development are Lucknow, Faridabad, Dharmashala, Chandigarh, Raipur, New Town Kolkata, Panaji, Ranchi, Warangal, Port Blair, Bhagalpur, Imphal and Agartala. The cities finalized through fast-track competition will be developed along with the earlier list of 20 cities selected in the first phase.

While announcing the new names, Mr. Naidu stated that these new cities have proposed investment of Rs.30,299 crore against the previous investment of Rs.50,560 proposed by earlier 20 cities. He also said these new entries have improved their earlier plans in the areas, ensuring feasibility of action plans to present more coordinated picture of how individual project will contribute to the lives of people in the respective areas. The 10 cities that could not grade in the fast-track competition will get another opportunity in the second round of regular competition to be held by the end of June.