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Smart Governance to Smart City

Smart City is an aim to improve the urban infrastructure and governance, the Modi-led government has embarked upon the initiative of building 100 smart cities across the country. This could bring the second round of construction boom in the country and get investment and expertise from several countries eager to participate in the transformation.

After making ample rounds of buzzing, the concept of 'Smart Cities' has finally arrived at making India's first smart city in Delhi. With the recent announcement of Union Urban Development Minister, M Venkaiah Naidu, Delhi will be developed into a "global city" and the country's first 'smart city' will be set up to decongest the national capital and facilitate it with all modern amenities. In addition, the Indian Government recently kicked off its ambitious smart cities programme along the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor (DMIC) leg that is located in Gujarat. The tendering process for the Dholera special investment region in Gujarat is to be launched shortly, expected to cost worth close to Rs 3,000 crore for building trunk infrastructure on the 22.5 square km.

While cities making smarter initiatives to realize actual Smart City, it's very important understand the concept, nuances and advantages that centres around smart city. The concept of a smart city is a relatively new one and no definite definition is available, Smart City is linked to modernisation and modernisation of a nation can happen through urbanisation. For urbanising countries such as India and China, smart cities are an opportunity to harness urban growth to sustainable development. Top-of the-line infrastructure is a means to leapfrog the development ladder, jettisoning older, inefficient and unsustainable systems and avoiding the costs of retrofitting. Government of India's thrust on smart cities has generated excitement amongst business leaders and upwardly-mobile middle-classes tired of living in ‘third-world’ environments.

Cities in the developed world are formulating technology master plans and then using these plans to develop a citywide command and control network that monitors and optimizes the delivery of services like power, water, traffic and healthcare. While enough literature exists on what is making top global cities smarter, there is no set global standard to classify a city as smart and sustainable. Is it governance, technology, communication, transport, mobile broadband, infrastructure, people, economy, environment, natural resources, innovation, quality of living or something more? What are the necessary factors for a city to be called as smart? Does history, culture, political, socio-economic factors influence the parameters? Is some factor more important than the other? Does absence or marginal presence of a factor make a difference? As a result, there are many definitions of a Smart Sustainable City in the literature, however, what is needed is a comprehensive overview which considers the various definitions and maps them into a concise set of key terms and attributes.

However, let us arrive at the basic premise of making a smart city is to have infrastructure network and delivery of services more efficient – across telecommunication, logistics, water and gas supply. Indian cities, in a small way, are using advanced technology within departments to solve problems. These include traffic control, using sensors to monitor water leaks, tracking garbage trucks through global positioning systems to ensure they dump their waste at designated landfills, energy management in smart buildings and complexes.

Hence, a smart city can be a city that is advanced in infrastructure, sustainable real estate, communications and market viability. Information technology is the principal infrastructure that gives essential services to residents. Smart cities are broadly defined as urban spaces that are technologically integrated, well-planned and environment-friendly.

Smart City Rely On Smart Grid

According to the Smart Cities Council, these are cities that leverage data gathered from smart sensors through a smart grid to create a city that is livable, workable and sustainable. Although there’s no city in India that has been classified as smart yet, companies such as Cisco, IBM and Microsoft have been working on cities based on smart-grids where all the utilities are integrated with data.

In a smart city, energy, water, transportation, public health and safety, and other key services are managed in concert to support smooth operation of critical infrastructure while providing for a clean, economic and safe environment in which to live, work and play. Timely logistics information will be gathered and supplied to the public by all means available, but particularly through social media networks. Conservation, efficiency and safety will all be greatly enhanced. The energy infrastructure is arguably the single most important feature in any city. If unavailable for a significant enough period of time, all other functions will eventually cease.

The concept of smart cities revolves around internalising following features: smart energy (smart meters, demand response, co-generation and renewable energy generation), smart transport (intelligent transportation systems, real-time information sharing about traffic conditions and public transport availability), smart water and waste management (digitised distribution of water to minimise leakages by using geographic information systems, and recycling of waste), maximisation of e-governance services and smart buildings (building energy management systems, energy-efficient building designs and retrofitting of existing buildings). However, to keep these systems running, ensuring a sustainable power supply is of prime importance. So, how will India power these 100 smart cities?

India’s resource endowments for energy are not very encouraging: while India supports about 17% of world’s population, it has only 0.4%, 0.4% and 6% of the world’s oil, natural gas and coal reserves, respectively—a gross deficiency, considering that it is the fourth-largest consumer of energy in the world after USA, China and Russia. The fact that India is importing nearly 80% of its crude oil consumption, 15% of its coal consumption and 35% of its natural gas consumption makes it even more challenging to power the dream of 100 smart cities. The potential answer to these challenges, therefore, lies in innovations, ranging from innovative ideas to processes and products that are likely to make this dream come true.

Although not within the urban local jurisdiction, energy is very much an urban concern. While fossil fuel fed mechanized transport remains the biggest head in energy consumption in cities. Increasing and inefficient electricity usage is also a cause of concern. Moreover, the fast growing cities of India also consume tremendous amounts of energy through real estate construction and infrastructure expansion activities. Cities, globally, use more energy than the industrial and rural hinterlands, implying that energy efficiency is not just a regional but also an urban responsibility. Contributing to peaking of grid loads and fossil fuel needs is our erratic usage pattern where a few hours of use trump the overall consumption across a day. This impacts the overall urban economy, having direct impacts on the revenues of any city and its potential for growth. Better energy management can not only help with the national level Jawaharlal Nehru Solar Mission goals on efficiency, but can also contribute towards better management of distribution and as a result more plentiful availability of energy, across the 24 hours, for growth and development.

In such a scenario, smart city Smart cities depend on a smart grid to ensure resilient delivery of energy to supply their many functions, present opportunities for conservation, improve efficiencies and, most importantly, enable coordination between urban officialdom, infrastructure operators, those responsible for public safety and the public. The smart city is all about how the city "organism" works together as an integrated whole and survives when put under extreme conditions. Energy, water, transportation, public health and safety, and other aspects of a smart city are managed in concert to support smooth operation of critical infrastructure while providing for a clean, economic and safe environment in which to live, work and play.

Here is one example of how cost-effective efficiency can be achieved in a smart city: Water utilities are typically one of the largest consumers of energy in a city; savings can be achieved by lessening their consumption of electricity as the electric utility nears its peak condition when energy is most expensive.

By coordinating with the electric utility and shifting water pumping to non-peak hours, the water utility can reduce its energy consumption (and ultimately its bill), help the electric utility avoid problems and allow other more critical and less flexible functions (such as hospitals) to maintain uninterrupted supply.

A smart grid alone does three things. First, it modernizes power systems through self-healing designs, automation, remote monitoring and control, and establishment of microgrids. Second, it informs and educates consumers about their energy usage, costs and alternative options, to enable them to make decisions autonomously about how and when to use electricity and fuels. Third, it provides safe, secure and reliable integration of distributed and renewable energy resources. All these add up to an energy infrastructure that is more reliable, more sustainable and more resilient. Thus, a smart grid sits at the heart of the smart city, which cannot fully exist without it.

The difference between a traditional grid and a Smart Grid is similar to the difference between television and the Internet. In traditional grids power is transmitted from a power plant to various recipients, in the same way as transmissions from a television mast. Smart Grid, similar to the Internet, opens up the possibility of information travelling in two directions. Households or industries can receive advanced information on their consumption, and can act on the basis of the information they receive, for example to save energy. Communication between producers and consumers of power not only makes it possible to control production, but also enables customers to control their demand for electricity based on costs, for example.

So through Smart Grid our electrical network is able to communicate with your home. In purely practical terms, this may mean that if there is a risk of the grid being overloaded, a Smart Grid can request that our water heaters stop heating for a few minutes. In individual homes little, if anything, will be noticed but for the grid it makes a difference if hundreds of thousands of water heaters are not running at maximum power at the same time.

With Smart Grid, consumers can also communicate with their homes, which various IT solutions also make possible. We will be able to control lamps, radiators and household appliances remotely for a smarter home. But Smart Grid does not just make two-way communication possible – the possibility of two-way distribution is also improved. Those who have solar panels on their roofs, for example, can more easily feed the power they generate into the system. Smart Grid makes it possible to utilise the flexibility that already exists in the electricity system but is not used today. For example, it makes it possible to balance consumption and production of electricity more effectively. Flexibility is also enhanced with the use of energy storage: it becomes easier, for instance, to harness the electricity produced by wind turbines on windy days and use the stored energy on days when there is no wind. And when more renewable energy can be used, carbon emissions can be reduced.

Smart Energy Management

Rising energy prices, energy security and theft, depleting energy sources and the global warming caused due to the impact of energy usage are some of the key issues the city managers are looking to solve to move the cities towards sustainability. City and its components are looking to solve these problems with the development of technologies to collect information and control energy.

Smart energy management systems uses sensors, advanced meters, digital controls and analytic tools to automate, monitor, and control the two-way flow of energy . Smart energy management systems optimize grid operation and usage by keeping consumers, the producers and the providers up-to-date with the latest technology advancements to deliver energy efficient solutions. This information can help transmute this real-time data to action items.

Smart Water, Smart City

One of a city's most important pieces of critical infrastructure is its water system. With populations in cities growing, it is inevitable that water consumption will grow as well. The term "smart water" points to water and wastewater infrastructure that ensures this precious resource - and the energy used to transport it - is managed effectively. A smart water system is designed to gather meaningful and actionable data about the flow, pressure and distribution of a city's water. Further, it is critical that that the consumption and forecasting of water use is accurate.

A city's water distribution and management system must be sound and viable in the long term to maintain its growth and should be equipped with the capacity to be monitored and networked with other critical systems to obtain more sophisticated and granular information on how they are performing and affecting each other. Additional efficiencies are gained when departments are able to share relevant, actionable information.

Water systems are often overlooked yet are critical components of energy management in smart cities, typically comprising 50 percent of a city's total energy spend. Energy is the largest controllable cost in water/wastewater operations, yet optimizing treatment plants and distribution networks has often been overlooked as a source of freeing up operating funds by cash-strapped municipalities. Once facilities are optimized and designed to gather meaningful and actionable data, municipal leaders can make better and faster decisions about their operations, which can result in up to 30 percent energy savings and up to 15% reduction of water losses.

Sustainable policies, strategies and practises are necessary to respond to the pressures on urban water. However weak regulatory water and sanitation frameworks, with overlapping of relevancy within governmental agencies and institutions have led to an unclear division of responsibilities and uncoordinated efforts in urban water management. This has caused a fragmentation of strategies, redundancies, jurisdictional conflicts, wastage of resources as well as conflicts in financing, resulting in inefficient and unsustainable approaches to urban water management in many global cities.

Notwithstanding heavy subsidies and fixed rates implemented by governments, encourages wasteful usage and high consumption rates of water resources which unfortunately creates further stress on this fragile resource. Furthermore politicization within this sector has driven short term decisions, goals and management strategies which correlate only to the elected governmental term/period. Additionally insufficient capacity development and outdated management practises cause decisions to be made with inadequate information or poor implementation.

Smart cities must be constructed in both emerging and developed economies, and are particularly necessary in countries and regions where population growth is expected. This is why technology that can increase pathways for water circulation and enable the effective utilization of water resources is also extremely important for the realization of a smart city.

Effective Waste Water Management

India accounts for 2.45% of land area and 4% of water resources of the world but represents 16% of the world population. Total utilizable water resource in the country has been estimated to be about 1123 BCM (690 BCM from surface and 433 BCM from ground), which is just 28% of the water derived from recipitation. About 85% (688 BCM) of water usage is being diverted for irrigation, which may increase to 1072 BCM by 2050.

With rapid expansion of cities and domestic water supply, quantity of gray/wastewater is increasing in the same proportion. As per CPHEEO estimates about 70-80% of total water supplied for domestic use gets generated as wastewater. The per capita wastewater generation by the class-I cities and class-II towns, representing 72% of urban population in India, has been estimated to be around 98 lpcd while that from the National Capital Territory-Delhi alone (discharging 3,663 mld of wastewaters, 61% of which is treated) is over 220 lpcd (CPCB, 1999).

Insufficient capacity of waste water treatment and increasing sewage generation pose big question of disposal of waste water. As a result, at present, significant portion of waste water being bypassed in STPs and sold to the nearby farmers on charge basis by the Water and Sewerage Board or most of the untreated waste water end up into river basins and indirectly used for irrigation. In developing countries like India, the problems associated with wastewater reuse arise from its lack of treatment. The challenge thus is to find such low-cost, low-tech, user friendly methods, which on one hand avoid threatening our substantial wastewater dependent livelihoods and on the other hand protect degradation of our valuable natural resources. The use of constructed wetlands is now being recognized as an efficient technology for wastewater treatment.

Compared to the conventional treatment systems, constructed wetlands need lesser material and energy, are easily operated, have no sludge disposal problems and can be maintained by untrained personnel. Further these systems have lower construction, maintenance and operation costs as these are driven by natural energies of sun, wind, soil, microorganisms, plants and animals. Hence, for any city to be developed as a smart city must have a planned, strategic, safe and sustainable use of wastewaters that can be achieved through a convenient policy decisions and coherent programs encompassing low-cost decentralized waste water treatment technologies, bio-filters, efficient microbial strains, and organic /inorganic amendments, appropriate crops/ cropping systems, cultivation of remunerative non-edible crops and modern sewage water application methods. It’s time to look at integrated waste management framework to not only treat and dispose the waste, but also, in the process of doing so, recover resources like energy, nutrients and water not only to close the loop of material use, reduce use of harmful chemicals but also improve financial viability of waste processing options. Decentralization, biomechanisation, and waste management at the household level are the need of the hour. Today, waste processing, co-processing are some of the technologies which can treat waste efficiently. There is a need to introduce curriculum in universities that will teach people to run and operate the technology systems.

Green transportation

Greater congestion and delays are widespread in Indian cities and indicate the seriousness of transport problems. A high level of pollution is another undesirable feature of overloaded streets. The transport crisis also takes a human toll. Statistics indicate that traffic accidents are a primary cause of accidental deaths in Indian cities. The main reasons for these problems are the prevailing imbalance in modal split, inadequate transport infrastructure, and its suboptimal use. Public transport systems have not been able to keep pace with the rapid and substantial increases in demand over the past few decades. Bus services in particular have deteriorated, and their relative output has been further reduced as passengers have turned to personalized modes and intermediate public transport.

Urban transportation is an important element for smart cities. Hence, the need to review city transportation systems in India (including metros, BRT’s, monorail, trams, waterways, walkways, bicycle tracks, etc.), to provide new and enhanced infrastructure for public transportation.

Ingredients of Sustainable Transport

There are four essential ingredients of sustainable transport:

Comprehensive mobility plan for the city
Compact city so that it is NMT and PT friendly
PT system to be citywide, multimodal and integrated
Interchanges with minimum time penalty

Electric Vehicles or Heavy Electric Vehicles, with infrastructure for recharging electric vehicles, and battery storage is expected to play a role in improving the quality of life in Indian cities. Fiscal incentives could encourage faster development in cities. To encourage the use of EV’s, the government has launched a National Mission on electric Mobility, with a target of 6 million electric vehicles by 2020. Electric vehicle charging stations in urban areas and along state and national highways are to be introduced by 2027.

The use of bio-fuels is being encouraged with an ethanol-blending program (ethanol with petrol) to curb India’s oil imports. The rail-based transport system consisting of suburban rail, metro and monorail would cater to the major transport needs of the city, provisions of adequate facilities for growth of nonmotorized transport are also very essential for accessible and sustainable transport system. There will be an increased focus on smart ticketing, smart cards that can be used for all modes of public transport system. Urban transport in India is finally getting attention. The role of urban transport in controlling pollution, energy consumption, accidents and improving livability and economic well-being of the city is being increasingly appreciated. Slowly, India is on the move there by towards a smarter city.

Information Communication & Technology

Information and communication technologies (ICT) will be the foundation for a transition process of making urban areas to smart cities. It is noted the goal of a smart city is to enhance the quality of its citizens, across multiple dimensions (but not limited to) such as water, energy, transport, education, environment, mobility, waste management, housing and economy (jobs). This will enable smart city to become an efficient urban centre of the future, safe, secure, green and sustainable with a well-balanced relationship between city and government managers, business and industry, research and academia and the common public. Thus, ICT acts as an enabler to make the above a reality with more intelligent and efficient in the use of resources, resulting in cost and energy savings, improved quality of life, and a reduced environmental footprint.

The investments in human and social capital and traditional (transportation) and modern (ICT-based) infrastructure fuel sustainable economic growth and a high quality of life, with a wise management of natural resources, through participatory government. Regardless of whether ICT takes centre stage in the development of a smart city or not, it is clear it is a key driver of smart city initiatives and thus needs attention from city planners and the various stakeholders interested in sustaining and improving quality of life in urban areas.

Data will be a key ingredient of 'smart city solutions'. Cities know that immediate access to data and accurate study of this information is vital to maintenance and sustenance of a city. This service needs to be at its peak not only when the city is at crisis but at all times. The city officials need to know real-time information so that they can prevent a future crisis. Every city has different priorities. While integrating cross domain information, it becomes easier for the city management and the decision makers to take a more informed decision. ICT enables in critical assessment and forecasting thus making the infrastructure management smarter. Data collection, processing and analysing the data, optimisation of the solution and the integration of the different optimisation solutions are essential for smart operation of a city. It is considered that there are five essential ICT elements that are needed to ensure a solid ICT foundation exists for nurturing the 'smart' agenda of a city.

Deployment of Broadband Networks- When considering the implementation of a smart ICT plan for a city, the first step for any policymaker is to foster the development of a rich environment of broadband networks that support digital applications, ensuring that these networks are available throughout the city and to all citizens. This plan for easy access to broadband should include a broadband infrastructure that combines cable, optical fibre, and wireless networks. This will offer maximum connectivity and bandwidth to citizens and organisations located in the city. The latest broadband service is fibre-optic, which is the fastest Internet connection available.

Use of Smart Devices and Agents -The second step for smart city planners to consider when implementing a smart ICT plan for a city is to ensure that the physical space and infrastructures of the city are enriched with embedded systems, smart devices, sensors, and actuators, offering real-time data management, alerts, and information processing for the city administration. The presence of these devices combined with wireless connectivity throughout a city facilitates a richer and more complex digital space within the city, which in turn can increase the collective embedded intelligence of a city. This collective embedded intelligence allows relevant stakeholders of the city to be informed about the city's physical environment and facilitates the deployment of advanced services like spatial intelligence. It also paves the way for developing other innovative ecosystems that help to link the city with its people and visitors through technology.

Developing Smart Urban Spaces-Smart urban spaces are areas of a city that leverage ICT to deliver more efficient and sustainable services and infrastructures within that specific area. The spaces can sometimes be as large as entire city districts and these districts can include services like electric car charge points, energy-efficient buildings that use ‘smart’ meters and smart heating and cooling systems. Wifi hotspots and information kiosks that allow people to connect to the Internet on the move through these districts are also common services available in smart urban spaces.

Developing Web-based Applications and e-Services-The availability of ubiquitous ICT infrastructures like those discussed above stimulates the development of new services and applications by various types of users, and allows for the gathering of a more realistic assessment of users’ perspectives by conducting acceptability tests directly on the infrastructures already in place and functioning in the smart city. To this end, Living Lab networks can help to make the testing of new applications and e-services easier and should be used as building blocks for the more efficient development of smart cities.

Government Data

This initiative puts information into the public domain that can benefit society by creating conditions for more social inclusive service delivery and for more participatory democracy. The effective use of government data can precipitate the smart evolution of a country’s cities, creating national competitive advantage for the country in question.

Thus, smart city is also an integration of two types of infrastructure – physical (buildings, roads, transportation, power plants for example) and digital (IT and Communications infrastructure). There is a divide between these two infrastructures - physical and digital with both operating on separate planes. A convergence of these two coupled with smart management can be essential element for a smart city.

The ICT infrastructure is essential for a successful smart city – it acts as the “glue” which integrates all the other elements of the smart sustainable city acting as a foundational platform. The ICT Infrastructure is at the core and acts as the nerve centre, orchestrating all the different interactions between the various core elements and the physical infrastructure.

Disaster Management

Disasters are events that exceed the response capabilities of a community or the organizations that exist within it. Natural hazards, building environment, political or social unrest, as well as IT and data security are potential risks to consider. During a disaster or emergency, a smart city must maintain operations required to address time-sensitive, disaster-specific issues. No plan can anticipate or include procedures to address all the human, operational and regulatory issues. Essential business transactions must function, addressing needs assessment, communication, volunteer outreach and coordination, grant applications and community assistance under rapidly changing circumstances.

ICT can aggregate, create, integrate information, and search the heterogeneous and multi-domain data and deliver a comprehensive set of information, appropriate for each end user.

A smart city should have carried out risk assessment with respect to its susceptibility to various natural disasters and should have strategy in place to deal with natural disaster to which it is highly susceptible. Cities worldwide are placing increasing importance on building up resilience to natural disasters. These include flooding, extreme weather, as well as heat and water stress, all linked to climate change. Sophisticated ICT infrastructure combined with analytical capabilities aid smart cities confronted by natural disaster to manage information flow.

A smart city’s disaster resilience solutions should cover observation systems, information gathering capabilities, data analysis and decision making aids. These components matched with an intelligent and interoperable warning system will enable cities to respond effectively to natural disasters. This heavily depends on ICT infrastructure, including mobile networks, to efficiently receive process, analyse and re-distribute data, and mobilize various city services.

Public safety and security

Above all, cities need to be safe. Public safety and security has become paramount for city administrations, whether protecting against crime, natural disasters, accidents or terrorism. From conventional street violence to complex financial offences, identity thefts or data breaches, a dynamic crime horizon can only be tackled by increasingly sophisticated technologies and processes. Tele surveillance systems are becoming increasingly pervasive in urban settings and, coupled with real-time communication capabilities, can help emergency services intervene promptly in incidents. In the immediate aftermath of a serious accident or catastrophic event, the ability to share information between agencies, to operate sophisticated tele-surveillance systems, to guarantee connectivity to incident response teams and first responders, to gather and analyse heterogeneous intelligence and data about incidents in real time, all in a reliable and secure way, allows municipalities and their emergency services to increase safety for citizens, businesses, assets and infrastructure.

The Smart City industry requires access to cost-effective, high-performance security services, including expertise in mobility, security, and systems integration. These security services can be tailored per utility to best fit their needs and help them achieve their organizational objectives. An experienced security services organization would need to provide the following capabilities: Proven expertise in information security, for organizations such as governments, large enterprisers and service providers; holistic security framework that operationalise security across the people, process, policy and technology foundations of each organization; experience in Security and Compliance Pre-Audit Assessments; threat Management expertise - Design, Managed Service, and Integration; policy Design and Related Services - Incident Response Planning, Risk Management, Compliance.

Therefore, the smart city aims to optimise quality of life by leveraging technology and integrating the different macro-functions discussed earlier. City governance should therefore ensure that ICT strategies are strongly interwoven into the fabric of the wider city evolution strategy. In this scenario of overlapping functions, the process and information exchange in the city need to be interconnected and contextualised in a common middleware. The systems need to be standardised, interoperable and open but also secure; in order to take third-party information into consideration and ensure an overall seamless service delivery.

Given the impossibility of protecting every aspect of the ecosystem with the same level of sophistication and resources, choices will have to be made. City governance will need to identify the most critical areas to protect, the types of threat they could be subject to, categories of attackers and likely motivations (financial, criminal or political). City IT ecosystems will increasingly be built on public sector cloud or infrastructure virtualisation, with social and mobile computing as the primary access for applications and services. In order to equip themselves for this transition and ensure the appropriate level of security and resilience of systems, cities will need to manage ICT leadership and governance, strong processes, people’s mindsets and robust technology. The right cyber security strategies can mean the difference between success and failure. The increasing urban deployment of public wireless networks, for instance, calls for robust security strategies to protect the Internet of Things connected through the city network. Information management and protection systems and backup and recovery systems for mission-critical administration data should protect citizens’ privacy and identities across domains, including local tax, healthcare, education and utilities.

Smart Buildings

Buildings are an urban necessity, and healthy buildings improve life by providing comfortable, secure places to live, work, and play. Smart building management systems with up-to-date information can make intelligent modifications to improve building energy efficiency, reduce wastage, and make optimum usage of water with operational effectiveness and occupant satisfaction.

The requirement for energy-efficient environments, energy building performance monitoring and management are recognized as fundamental components for accelerating the reality of smart cities wherein ICT will play a dominant role. As mentioned, buildings are one of the major contributors to energy consumption within cities. According to a study by the Gesi Climate change group, the worldwide energy consumption of buildings will grow by 45% from 2002 to 2025, which includes a reduction of 15% by different ICT domains.

Building Value Chain

Bearing all these aspects in mind, and for buildings to have an impact at city level in terms of energy efficiency, different challenges have been identified in the building value chain (from design to end-of-life of buildings), which can be summarized as follows:

Design: The design of buildings should be integrated, holistic, and multi-targeted.
Structure: The structure of buildings should provide features such as safety, sustainability, adaptability, and affordability.
Building envelope: This should ensure efficient energy and environmental performance. Prefabrication is a crucial step to guarantee energy performance.
Multifunctional and adaptive components, surfaces and finishes to create added energy functionality, and durability should all be built in.
Energy equipment and systems: Advanced heating/cooling and domestic hot water solutions, including renewable energy sources, should focus on sustainable generation as well as on heat recovery. Among these systems, thermal storage (including both heat and cold) is recognized as a major breakthrough in building design. Distributed/decentralized energy generation should address the key requirement of finding smart solutions for grid-system interactions on a large scale. ICT smart networks will form a key component in such solutions. For instance, the authors study the communication requirements for smart grids and describe the most suitable communication protocols, wired and wireless, with special attention to the latest proposals in this field.
Construction processes: These should consider ICT-aided construction, improving the energy performance delivered, and using automated construction tools.
Performance monitoring and management: This should ensure interoperability among the different subsystems of the building, including smart energy management systems that provide flexible actions to reduce the gap between predicted and actual energy building performance, occupancy modelling, the fast and reproducible assessment of designed or actual performance, and continuous monitoring and control during service life. Finally, knowledge sharing must be considered by means of open data standards that allow collaboration among stakeholders and interoperability among systems.

End of life. This should include decision-support concerning possible renovation or the construction of a new building and associated systems.

In India, to help build new cities, the government has allowed 100% Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the housing and real estate sector. Hailing the move, the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) said that the relaxation of FDI norms in the construction sector will boost the government’s ongoing efforts in creating smart cities. Allowing 100% FDI will provide a right impetus to the capital-starved housing and real estate sector especially in Tier II & III cities, said ASSOCHAM.

The new norms will result in removal of the minimum 10-hectare rule for the serviced housing plot, reduction of minimum floor area for construction projects eligible for overseas investment (from 50,000 square metres to 20,000 square metres) and also a reduction in minimum ticket size for FDI investment from $10 million to $5 million. Apart from green technologies and construction materials, Smart Cities are expected to spur demand for digital technology, automobiles, energy, healthcare and transport systems in India in the coming years.

Smart Governance for Smart Cities

Creating a smart city is not an easy task as it requires preparing habitat with a smart leadership. Further, there is a need to provide facilities for transport, water, disposal of waste, traffic security management, education, and entertainment and employment opportunities, among others. Hence, smart governance is the backbone of smart solutions. Smarter governance is enabled through more informed decision making and participation of disparate opinions and agendas towards overall betterment of cities and communities.

The Indian context demands huge analysis of existing scenario and a planned management. For instance, megacities in India, unlike in most other countries, lack autonomous governments with the power to shape their decisions. They are controlled by provincial administrations and managed by a patchwork of state, city and municipal bodies, public and private corporations and village panchayats. Hence, for smart systems to improve planning, coordination and governance, it will be necessary to have a centralised metropolitan governing structure in place, accountable to city residents.

In China, unlike in India, city and local governments play a key role in urban development. China is politically centralised, but administratively and fiscally far more decentralised than India. City governments have the tools and resources to plan and manage growth. Urbanisation, historically, has been a time where public institutions are built and strengthened, from utilities to regulatory institutions to social welfare services to public libraries and hospitals. The fragility of civic institutions will have a serious impact on India’s ability to deliver broad-based improvements in well-being to its rapidly growing urban population. In situ rural urbanisation accounted for nearly 30% of urban growth in India over the past decade, creating hundreds of newly-urban settlements without municipal institutions capable of collecting taxes, planning urban development and delivering public services. As a result, slums and informal settlements, once a big city problem, are becoming more widespread.

India is experiencing rapid urban growth in a context where city governments are weak or non-existent. Deficiencies in urban governance and management in India reflect structural and institutional problems that will not be resolved by advanced data systems or sensor-equipped infrastructure networks.

Public-private partnerships, the Modi government’s preferred model for smart city development and management, in order to serve the public interest as well as private interests, will require an effective and locally-accountable government partner. The trappings of a smart city—cyber highways, digital sensors, smart cards and computerised management systems—will remain just trappings, like the city development plans and environmental policies Indian cities regularly prepare but rarely implement, unless city governments have the incentives and resources to use them.

International Support

The Smart City initiative has already caught the attention of several countries such as Japan, Russia, New Zealand and countries in ASEAN. Recently, Russia said that it would participate in developing smart cities in India, while India has urged USA to increase investments in the development of Smart Cities in India, after reports in USA said that there were significant barriers to FDI in India.

It is a welcome decision by several developed countries to support smart city initiatives in India that look at it as a feasible opportunity to offer their solutions. Japan has invested $4.5 billion in the first stage of DMIC through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). They hold a joint 26% stake in the project. Japan is also working closely with the government for the development of other industrial corridors. In a bid to facilitate and fast track Japanese investment proposals, the department of industrial policy and promotion has also set up a special management team.

UAE-based SmartCity, Dubai is planning to explore the possibility of developing a smart city in Madhya Pradesh. The state government plans to develop a smart city on 1,000 acres of land at a location between Indore and Bhopal. It is also the main promoter of the Smart City project in Kochi. SmartCity, Dubai, was recently given permissions to construct the first building of Kochi Smart City with an investment of $29 million. The Kochi Smart City will be the first in India which would be automated township where knowledge-based companies would operate. However, the Kochi Smart City project has been delayed by several years due to protests by opposition parties over concessions on land and other sops. The global recession that started in 2007 also resulted in delays.

Another smart city in Madhya Pradesh is coming up near Ujjain. The Union government will soon start the process for construction of the smart city, being developed under Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) project. The DMICDC will invite international competitive bidding for developing trunk infrastructure including water supply, sewerage treatment and roadways among others. The government will provide funds for the trunk infrastructure through DMIC Trust.

The master plan for the smart city in Ujjain, which will be an integrated industrial township, has already been accepted by the state government and the land acquisition has been completed. The site for the proposed Vikram Udyogpuri is located about 8km from the temple town of Ujjain, which is about 55km from Indore.

In his recent visit to India, Takehiko Nakao, President, Asian Development Bank (ADB) said the bank is planning to invest $7-$9 billion as a new commitment in the coming three years, 2014-16. It aims to strengthen its support to smart cities and the east-coast economic corridor. In additon, it has also supported sewage, water and sanitation system even before, but it plans to strengthen its work in sanitation. ADB has supported private sector and it has been supporting PPP (public-private partnership) through lending to IIFCL. It aims to enhance the co-operation in PPP by using its own new PPP unit.

Public Private Partnership Model

The 100 smart cities will include 35 capitals of States/Union Territories, around 10 cities with population of over 40 lakh, some 25 mid-size towns, and greenfield cities. The Narendra Modi government is working on a “flexible” PPP (public-private partnership) model and efficient urban mobility schemes such as metro and monorail as the primary peg to realise its ambitious project to develop 100 smart cities. Banking on private investment, smart cities project can be executed in PPP model and the government can contribute as viable gap funding (VGF).Urban local bodies (ULB) are also being asked to introduce reforms to generate additional revenue to be part of the Smart City project. ULBs have to improve its performances like putting public service online and credit ratings for issuing bonds. The Government wants municipal bodies to come on board and will set conditions for the private entities — for instance, all services to be delivered on online platform, and all records to be in digital domain. He, however, did not name the private players that have shown interest in providing the services.

Although the private sector (both domestic and international players) has shown enthusiasm about engaging in the smart city project, the industry is seeking assurance about return on investment. For instance, the industry wants confidence from the government that policies will not change mid-way and they are seeking room for flexibility in the terms of agreement, while a project is in progress. Along with that, the government is learnt to be looking at a massive expansion of the Metro rail across the country to make smart cities feasible.

The government is yet to decide on the project cost or on the list of cities that will be converted into “smart”. An initial estimate had put the figure at Rs 35,000 crore as the annual cost for the project but in the Budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley allocated Rs 7,060 crore for it (Rs 70 crore each for a city). The rest is expected to come from the private sector. The genesis of the Rs 35,000 crore figures was a high power expert committee on investment estimates in urban infrastructure that assessed a per capita investment cost of Rs 43,386 for a 20-year period. The estimates covered water supply, sewerage, sanitation and transportation related infrastructure.

Treading Towards Smart Cities

Certain infrastructure challenges have forced cities to adopt smarter iniatives thus move towards becoming smart city. For instance, in the coming few days' Bangalore's Electronics City may be automatically guided to a free parking slot close to your destination. A mobile application will let you know where a parking slot is available even before you arrive. Chances are that you may even see street lamps fitted with smart sensors that can change the intensity of the light according to the traffic flow, shifts in seasonal weather and when events such as an accident take place.

All this is part of a pilot project being undertaken by the Electronics City Industries Association (ELCIA) along with US technology giant Cisco. A 5-kilometre stretch has been identified where, in addition to parking and street lighting, other features, such as security surveillance, traffic management and water management, will be controlled centrally through intelligent sensors, information systems and the Internet to improve the quality and efficiency of civic amenities in the area. When scaled beyond the 5-km stretch, this project will be presented as the proof of concept of a smart city, early next year.

Like Bangalore, there are several such smart city projects being undertaken across the country, in places such as Dholera in Gujarat, Kochi in Kerala, Aurangabad in Maharashtra, Manesar in Delhi NCR, Khushkera in Rajasthan, Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Ponneri in Tamil Nadu and Tumkur in Karnataka.

Conclusion

The plan to build a hundred new smart cities is both grandiosely ambitious as well as deeply inadequate. By 2040, India’s urban population will be over 600 million. For established cities, setting up smart technology in areas like water, power and transport takes longer as these cities were not built keeping technology advancement in mind. But greenfield cities coming up in and around metros—like Palava in Mumbai, the ones in Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor, Dholera in Gujarat, Shengda and Dighi in Maharashtra—have great potential as smart cities, as technology can go hand-in-hand with building the city. Country like India can witness smart cities within the proposed time given its vast amount of resources waiting to be used in the right way. These resources are human, land, and knowledge. Harnessing these existing resources though is a challenge, can be achieved with smarter governance.

Box Item-1: 100 Smart City Scheme in India

Development of greenfield cities have seldom been successful, however, some new cities need to be developed in the Hills and Coastal areas.

Citizens Reference Framework: to be evolved through professional agencies, capturing aspirations and expectation of citizens by wide citizens consultation

Smart Cities Development Plan: GIS, spatial, and ICT mapping as well as master plan, incl. financial requirements and funding

Environmental Sustainability Plan: actions to be taken for energy efficient and green technologies / processes.

GoI will provide financial resources

GoI will help State Governments/Urban Local Bodies by empanelling professional agencies centrally

State Governments/ULBs/parastatal will be able to select one of the empanelled agencies of their choice for each of the aforementioned plans.

Current Challenges for Smart Cities Initiative

The current capacity is weak to take up such a large program.

A strong cadre of urban planners has not developed in the civil services.

A large number of professionally trained manpower will be needed.
Thus, there is a need for a large capacity building program that encompasses training, education, contextual research, knowledge exchange and a rich database.
Ministry of Urban Development will take up a national program towards Capacity Building through
Mother Institution: developing curriculum, standards, contacts and ensuring quality,

Regional Institutions: conduct of courses, adherence to standards, protocols etc.

Training Institutions: Existing institutions will be strengthened

Box Item-2: Suggestions Given by State Governments

Flexibility in implementation

Incentivising performance

Capacity building for technology adoption

Higher central assistance in view of the resource constraints of urban local bodies

Expeditious clearances by the Government of India

Higher level of Viability Gap Funding in respect of solid waste management and water supply projects

Capital expenditure to be borne by central government since private operators can only manage the operations and maintenance with utility charges

Special Purpose Vehicles to be created for executing the projects

Centre to bear the cost of preparation of feasibility and project reports

Centre to guide in respect of cutting edge technologies since the same is not in the domain of states/UTs.

Box Item-3: Important Elements Identified by the Urban Development Ministry:

In terms of infrastructure, the smart cities should have 24x7 availability of high quality utility services like water and power

A robust transport system that emphasises on public transport is also a key element.

In social infrastructure, the cities should provide opportunities for jobs and livelihoods for its inhabitants.

The smart cities should also have proper facilities for entertainment and the safety and security of the people. State-of-the-art health and education facilities are also a must.

The smart cities should minimize waste by increasing energy efficiency and reducing water conservation. Proper recycling of waste materials must be done in such cities.

References:

http://www.itu.int/

https://www.google.co.in/

http://eu-smartcities.eu/

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/

http://www.financialexpress.com/

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/

http://www.hindustantimes.com/

https://ws.elance.com/file/Smart_Meters_Report_Final.docx

http://www.business-standard.com/