The purpose of the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) is to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local area development and harnessing technology especially technology that leads to Smart outcomes.
The Ministry of Urban Development has developed a set of ‘Liveability Standards in Cities’ to generate a Liveability Index and rate cities with a total of 79 indicators (57 Core Indicators and 22 Supporting Indicators) that have been prescribed in the document.
SCM of the Government of India with a budget of Rs 48,000 crore promotes cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens a clean and sustainable environment and the application of ‘smart’ solutions. Such Smart Solutions include ICT interventions for e-governance online government services and improving the efficiency of core services at a relatively lower cost.
The DataSmart Cities initiative was conceptualized to successfully institutionalize a “Culture of data” Drive Data Governance and policy formulation promotion of data sharing and exchange and promotion of multi-disciplinary research to thereby achieve co-creation open innovation and empowerment of citizens.
SCM is actively providing support for rapid response in COVID-19 management. The Integrated Command and Control Centers (ICCC) set up under the mission in various Smart Cities including Bangalore Pune Agra and Vadodara to name a few have been transformed into war rooms for real-time monitoring and effective management of the pandemic using technology.
These practices were around gathering information rapid communication active management of COVID-infected areas and people and taking proactive steps in avoiding spread of the pandemic. These have been documented and shared with all the Smart City CEOs and Municipal Commissioners and can be replicated in other cities. ClimateSMART Cities Assessment Framework was launched for the 100 Smart cities in order to incentivize holistic climate-responsive development. This is a first-of-its-kind Assessment Framework for cities aimed at creating a green mindset in cities while they plan and undertake various developmental projects. The Framework includes various air and climate-relevant parameters that shall guide the cities and help them to assess their own preparedness to tackle the menace of climate change and degrading air quality.
