Firm changes and regulations are the utmost focus of the current Indian government. Digitalization is taking the row with this every business is finding optimistic transformations. 100 Smart Cities as when first cited by PM Modi brought a huge uproar by sanctioning “100 Smart Cities Mission” on 25 June 2015. A total of Rs. 98,000 crore (US$14 billion) was approved by the Indian Cabinet for the development of 100 smart cities and the rejuvenation of 500 others. Technology sector is a proven success theory expediting valiant solutions for as growing urban population demands a comfy lifestyle while leveraging opportunity towards a better life. But giving India’s back heritage and scrambled planning of urbanization, developing a Smart city is not just another episode. Experts underline that by 2050, 66% of the world’s population is projected to be urban. Climatic change, overconsumption of resources, city congestion, pollution, law and order and insecurity are some of the major factors posing major challenges to these cities. And Smart Cities seems to have the answers for it. But many questions and challenges underlie as we move towards developing a holistic approach to build the next cities in India. When compared to different parts of the world, for e.g. Europe or America or for that South Korea and Singapore, India is unique and at the same time derives mammoth opportunities.
What is the Need of Smart City?
As apparent, India is less than 30 per cent urban and the quality of life in its cities is chronically low. However, with 2/3rds of GDP already generated in India’s cities and with rural to urban migration patterns accelerating, the country faces a critical challenge: managing this rapid urbanization in a way that enhances the livability of India’s urban spaces. A large number of population living in the cities, the country is in dire need to enhance the quality of living of its citizens in both urban and rural spaces. India struggles with a number of significant barriers that continue to hamper the development of urban infrastructure: complex leadership structures, land valuation challenges, capability gaps, and funding shortfalls are all part of the urban challenge that is effectively holding India back from a new round of dramatic economic growth. India also needs to address the current problems of developing good infrastructure, solid waste disposal, flood management, storm water and sewerage system etc. resulting in urban decay, traffic gridlock and thereby a deteriorating quality of life for many of its citizens. The wave of urbanization that is sweeping across India represents one of the country’s greatest opportunities as well as one of its most serious challenges.
Some of the core infrastructure elements in a Smart City would include:
- 24×7 availability of high quality utility services like water and power.
- A robust transport system that emphasizes on public transport
- Provide opportunities for jobs and livelihoods for its inhabitants.
- Proper facilities for entertainment and the safety and security of the people. State-of-the-art health and education facilities are also a must.
- Minimize waste by increasing energy efficiency and reducing water conservation and proper recycling of waste materials
Status of Smart City Project in India
Cities took time to form SPVs(Special Purpose Vehicles), and in 2017, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) actually had to hold another round to competitions to reinject enthusiasm in the mission. Surat won the first India Smart Cities award last summer for “showing great enthusiasm in implementing of projects under India Smart Cities Mission”, especially in areas of urban environment, transport and mobilityand sustainable integrated development. Urban planners were fortuned to understand that budgetary allocations were increased last year. In the last budget, there was a financial outlay of Rs 6,169 crore for the SCM with the expected deliverable of formation of SPVs for ten smart cities and 115 projects to be implemented in 60 cities for Smart Road, Street Redesign and Smart Parking. According to reports, the SCM saw a big implementational surge in the last financial year (2018-19), with over 2,300 projects worth around 91,000 crore tendered. Nearly 72 per cent of these projects (over 1,600 of them) worth around Rs 51,000 crore are under implementation or done. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy believes that if this momentum is maintained, the SCM projects could see a faster completion. The big achievements in the last fiscal are a three-fold rise of projects tendered, and another three-fold rise in projects completed.
5 New Smart Cities in Budget 2020
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has proposed to develop 5 new smart cities. However, she didn’t make any announcement of budgetary allocation and selected cities. Under the Smart City Mission India, 100 smart cities have been selected since 2015. All 100 cities have incorporated Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), City Level Advisory Forums (CLAF) and appointed Project Management Consultants (PMC) to appraise, approve, implement, manage, operate, monitor and evaluate the projects. According to the Economic Survey 2019-20, as much as 5,151 smart city projects with a cost of Rs 2 lakh crore are in various stages of implementation among the 100 smart cities since the inception of Smart City Mission.
While the 2020-21 budget has not mentioned any particular budget increment for the Smart Cities Mission, 2019 budget had allocated Rs 6,450 crore for the Smart Cities Mission for 2019-2020 against Rs 6,169 crore in 2018-2019, a 4.5 percent hike than the last year. The 2018 budget had seen a major jump in budget allocation over 50 percent increase for smart cities from Rs 4,000 crore for 2017-2018 to Rs 6,169 crore for 2018-2019.
The Power of IoT to Lit Up Smart Cities
Connected technologies and IoT solutions for smart cities play important roles in transforming cities into smart cities. Implementing a smart city with IoT and connected technology helps to enhance the quality, performance, and interactivity of urban services, optimize resources and reduce costs. Smart Lighting, Smart Buildings, Smart Parking, Smart Energy–the Smart City concept is aimed squarely at increasing convenience, safety and economy. It is enormously user-friendly and any elements that fail the user-friendly test are the result of bad government or more likely, bad implementation.
Attractive Opportunities in the IoT in Smart Cities Market
Source: Industry Experts and MarketsandMarket Analysis
The Internet of Things (IoT) in smart cities market is projected to grow from USD 79.5 billion in 2018 to USD 219.6 billion by 2023, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 22.5% from 2018 to 2023. The major factors driving the growth of the IoT in smart cities market are the increasing number of government initiatives and PPP models for smart cities, improvements in the communication infrastructure brought on by IoT, and rising adoption of connected and smart technologies in smart cities initiatives. One of the major challenges for the growth of the IoT in smart cities market is project funding for huge initial capital expenditure. It has become the national/local government’s prime responsibility to heavily invest in the transformation process of the city infrastructure. It is easy to understand that even while governments possess the need, vision, and clarity for such transformations, lack of budgetary allocations for any large-scale implementations hinders the pace of the transformation process, either directly or indirectly. Such heavy investments could also add to the economic burden of debt-ridden governments or local municipal authorities, which adversely affects future general budgets.
Sensors for Smart Cities
Miro Adzan, General manager, Factory Automation & Control Texas Instruments Ajinder Singh, General manager, Building Automation, Lighting & Industrial IoT Texas Instruments Henrik Mannesson, General manager, Grid Infrastructure Texas Instruments writes, in many ways, smart cities depend on the Internet of Things (IoT) applied on a city-wide basis. That is, innumerable sensors and small systems communicate constantly through gateways and the Internet cloud to metropolitan control centers to keep city services running smoothly. As with the IoT, the technology required for individual sensing nodes in smart cities has to be miniature and affordable, while consuming very little power in operation. Further upstream from the nodes, in gateways, and especially in the cloud and control centers, highperformance, high-bandwidth and multichannel operation become increasingly important. Equipment manufacturers for smart cities, and the municipal governments who are their customers, will have to look for scalable electronic solutions that meet these requirements. Remote sensors are normally small and cannot be routinely maintained for battery changes. Sensors vary in complexity, but a given sensor may combine one or more sensing elements for temperature, sunlight, radar, lidar or chemical detection, together with analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) and signal amplification, local processing, a communications interface, wireless transmission, a battery and power management. These functions must fit in the space of a button that can be applied to a pole, beam, wall or other structure, where the sensor can perform its function for years without interruption or failure.
