Smart Cities In India: Objective, Meaning, & List of Current Projects

Smart City Mission is Critical for Developing a Universal Framework.

Smart City is not a dream anymore. The Indian Government along with the state governments and authorities are making it a beautiful reality. What used to lie behind digital frames is soon going to be in the Indian atmosphere. With the launch of the Smart City India project in 2016, many states have started developing their cities into a whole new world. 

However, something that lacks in the mission is its timeframe of five years. In order to make the Smart Cities Mission a success, it would be a great idea to elongate the span. Moreover, citizens can now expect everything to be easily accessible related to government services. The Smart City project focuses on offering an elevated lifestyle and environment to all sectors of the community.  

There’s so much to Smart City India that most people are unaware about. In this piece accumulated by Square Yards, know when and how this project will be taken forward along with the stipulated list of smart cities in India. 

What is the Smart Cities Mission?

The Smart Cities Mission is an initiative by the Government of India to improve the lifestyle of citizens living in that particular city or town. This initiative will be taken further by the best practices, information, and smart technologies. Several public-private partnership firms are also going to be a part of the Smart Cities Mission. 

This mission was first launched on June 25, 2015, by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Furthermore, the Union Ministry of Urban Development is in charge of executing the mission throughout the cities. A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) has also been created in each state and is headed by the CEO. It is done in order to look after the proper implementation of the Smart City projects. In order to make it a successful implementation of new age development, funding of ₹ 7,20,000 crore has been provided by the government. 

After completing a five-round process, 100 cities throughout India have been selected. Development starts taking place according to the list of smart cities in India and the master plan. All the states, leaving West Bengal, have taken part in this development mission. WB is not a part of this initiative due to the difference in state and central government ideologies. Following this, Navi Mumbai and Mumbai also withdrew from Maharashtra state from the mission. 

Features of Smart Cities Mission in India

The major motto of the Smart Cities Mission is to drive economic growth and enhance lifestyle quality. But how will these objectives be achieved? Get to know how the objectives of Smart City India are going to implement for growth with its features. 

1. The mission promotes the use of mixed land according to its per-area usage plan. Therefore, this allows the state to have vast land for multi-purposes and make the bye-laws accordingly. Under this mission, the multiple uses of a land area will be completed by undertaking environmental-friendly measures. 
2. Providing housing choices to everyone is another major goal of the Smart City projects. Living quarters are the building blocks to achieving smart development goals. Hence, more housing construction projects will be taken out to provide shelter for lower-income groups. 
3. The mission is set to give the people relief from congestion. Smart City India will also ensure the security of the people, promote communication, and reduce smog at the same time. New pedestrian streets are also being constructed for cyclers and walkers to avoid accidents.  
4. Developing recreational spots like gardens, parks, open gyms, playgrounds, and more are other major goals of the mission. This will help in promoting a good lifestyle among Indian citizens.  
5. Government-related services are gradually going digital to promote transparency and accountability in the system and the people. Therefore, now citizens can simply go to the portal instead of visiting the municipal office for requesting a service or assistance.
6. More transportation choices are also being promoted throughout the country. These include public transport and transit-oriented development (TOD).
7. Each city is also given identification in several areas like education, local cookery, health, arts, sports, fashion, culture, and many more.
8. Smart technologies are brought and implemented in services and infrastructure for the development of the area.

Smart City India’s Smart Solutions

Under the Smart Cities Mission, the following are the smart solutions offered by the authority for the basic construction of the infrastructure:

• Grieval redressal and public information
• Delivery of electronic services
• Eyes and ears for the city’s citizens
• Monitoring of video crimes
• Citizen engagement
• Waste to compost initiative
• Waste to fuel and energy 
• Every drop treatment
• C&D waste treatment
• Smart meters
• Electricity and water management
• Identification of leakage
• Monitoring water quality
• Renewable energy source
• Green buildings
• Energy efficiency
• Smart parking system
• System of intelligent traffic management
• Integrated multi-modal transportation system
• Tele-medicine
• Centre of trade facilitation
• Skill development centres

Financing of Smart Cities Mission in India

Till now, the Government of India has accumulated funds of ₹ 7,20,000 crore. The whole cost is divided into a hundred smart cities and projects calculates to ₹ 100 crore/city in the span of five years. This scheme is being sponsored as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) and is based on the 50:50 model. This means that 50%, i.e, ₹ 50 crores will be contributed by the Central Government and the rest 50% (₹ 50 crores) will be contributed by the State Government/Union Territory. The financing has been a tough part of the Smart City projects as the Centre released ₹ 27,282 crores while the state only released ₹ 20,124 crores till November 2021. 

Smart City List Map

Source: researchgate.net/figure/Location-of-100-cities-selected-under-the-Smart-Cities-Mission

List of Cities for Smart City in India

The smart city list furnished by the Government of India and authorities taking part in the development are the following:

• Port Blair
• Visakhapatnam
• Tirupati
• Kakinada
• Amaravati
• Pasighat
• Guwahati
• Muzaffarpur
• Bhagalpur
• Biharsharif
• Patna
• Chandigarh
• Raipur
• Bilaspur
• Naya Raipur
• Diu Dadra & Nagar Haveli
• Silvassa
• New Delhi Municipal Council
• Panaji
• Gandhinagar
• Ahmedabad
• Surat
• Vadodara
• Rajkot
• Dahod
• Karnal
• Faridabad
• Dharamshala
• Shimla
• Srinagar
• Jammu
• Ranchi
• Mangaluru
• Belagavi
• Shivamogga
• Hubballi Dharwad
• Tumakuru
• Davangere
• Bengaluru
• Kochi
• Trivandrum
• Kavaratti
• Bhopal
• Indore
• Jabalpur
• Gwalior
• Sagar
• Satna Ujjain
• Nashik
• Thane
• Greater Mumbai
• Amravati
• Solapur
• Nagpur
• Kalyan-Dombivali
• Aurangabad
• Pune
• Pimpri Chinchwad
• Imphal
• Shillong
• Aizawl
• Kohima
• Bhubaneshwar
• Raurkela
• Oulgaret
• Ludhiana
• Jalandhar
• Amritsar 
• Jaipur 
• Udaipur
• Kota
• Ajmer
• Namchi
• Gangtok
• Tiruchirapalli
• Tirunelveli
• Dindigul
• Thanjavur
• Tiruppur
• Salem
• Vellore
• Coimbatore
• Madurai
• Erode
• Thoothukudi
• Chennai
• Greater Hyderabad
• Greater Warangal
• Karimnagar
• Agartala
• Moradabad
• Aligarh
• Saharanpur
• Bareilly
• Jhansi
• Kanpur
• Prayagraj 
• Lucknow
• Varanasi
• Ghaziabad
• Agra
• Rampur
• Dehradun

Smart Cities Mission India Challenge

The Ministry of Urban Development in India used the competition method of area-based strategy This was done for the development to select the cities that will be included under this Smart Cities Mission. The cities in the first phase of the competition competed at the state level in all the participatory cities and the winners were selected for the national level. The top cities scoring the highest in the national Smart City projects’ mission got selected for the development process. The nominations of all the participatory cities came from the Government of States. 

Don’t miss It!

Many other government-related projects are being interlinked to make this initiative a success. Integrating various components of development, i.e, social, economic, cultural, institutional, and physical, the Smart City projects aims to create a whole different world. The various sectorial schemes linked with this mission are as follows:

• Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) – This mission aims to provide basic services like water supply, urban transport, sewage, etc to people. It also focuses on building amenities in several cities that can help in enhancing the quality of life, especially for the poor and disadvantaged people of the country.  
• Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDYA) – This mission aims to protect and preserve the heritage of the cities. It also focuses on providing inclusive heritage that can be linked with urban development by exploring various avenue sectors that includes the private sector too.
• Digital India – Creating a digital infrastructure is the aim of Digital India’s mission. This includes digital delivery of services, digital literacy and others. The mission focused on developing and ameliorating digital infrastructure in every corner of the country.
• Make in India – The main objectives of the Make in India mission are to foster innovation, promote and facilitate investment, protect intellectual property rights, enhance the development of skills, and build the state-of-the-art infrastructure for manufacturing in the country.
• Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – The PMAY aims to provide central assistance to the people through the implementing agencies in all the States and Union Territories of India to provide housing solutions to eligible families and beneficiaries. 
• Swach Bharat Abhiyan – The aim of this mission is to reduce and eliminate open defecation throughout the country. 

Current Status of Smart City Mission in India

The status of the Smart City India mission according to the data furnished by the relevant authority as of February 16, 2022, are as follows:

Recommendations for Smart Cities Mission

Here is a list of some recommendations that can help the Smart Cities Mission become successful and achieve more advantages:

• This should be termed as a long-term mission instead of being a five-year programme. This is because the longer span will help in performing better which is not possible in just five years.
• The government should identify more missions to interlink them with the Smart City projects to achieve great results. Linking with other projects can help in dealing with more issues and can easily resolve the issue faced by the cities.
• Research and findings should be done in order to know why particular projects are not being carried out. Some of these cities are Muzaffarpur, Shillong, Bhagalpur, and Amravati.
• The authorities should generate more funds through taxation for the amount to mobilise. Moreover, the transfer of funding can also be made accessible for development.
• Cybersecurity should be a major part of the development for providing safety to the cities under this project. This will ensure encrypted data security and can’t be easily breached. 

Smart City Mission under SCM

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs’ Smart Cities Mission is soon to launch another strategy, known as ‘DataSmart Cities’. This new strategy will help the authorities take up the data which will assist in solving complex urban problems. Under this new initiative of the Smart City list in India, the focus will be on the advancement of data-driven governance. 

This new initiative of DataSmart Cities will also encourage areas to incorporate the data culture fundamentals at their local levels. These can include forming Smart Cities, an alliance of these cities, data strategy of the city, a network of the smart cities, and many others. This new initiative will also promote peer-to-peer learning throughout the city about data-driven governance. It outlines the reusable cases related to smart city development in multiple fields.  

Smart City Projects Success Stories

Being a highly anticipated initiative, the Indian Government and the Ministry of Urban Planning gave great results. Some of the success stories of the Smart City list that made headlines are as follows:

Data Centre Strengthening and Disaster Recovery (DR) Site

The Indian Government along with its Corporate Partners has launched multiple e-governance initiatives. Smart City projects, and other projects in order to meet the citizens’ demands for online services. In the past few years, requirements for data centre has been growing without bounds. In order to meet that, the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) has envisioned building up the data centre and Infrastructure for Data Recovery. 

Automatic Fare Collection System (AFCS) in Surat

Being one of the fastest-growing cities in India and the world, Surat ranked fourth in the list of developing areas. With a wide range of business sectors ranging from textile to real estate, this city is full of career opportunities. With development, the city also started attracting many people for business, jobs, education etc. This calls for a better system and heavy traffic at the same time. In the last three years, the city went through multiple substantial changes like an automatic collection of public transport fares. 

The Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) introduced an advanced public transportation system with the help of the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS). The 30 kilometres route went through the advancement in Phase I of the change, which added further 42 kilometres in the next phase. This new smart initiative made it easy for both travellers to pay and authorities to collect fares without any hassle. The SMC has a master plan to include 2,000 public city buses and 300 BRTS buses to comply with this new system in the upcoming three years.   

Visakhapatnam’s Smart Streets

Visakhapatnam got their smart streets under the Smart Cities Mission. The pilot construction project includes 7 kilometres of two major streets of the city. These roads are Waltair Road and Chinna Waltair Road. Under this project, wide roadways, cycling ways, pedestrian lighting, landscaped corridors, tree plantation, and other factors are being focused on.  

FAQ’s about Smart Cities India