eGov August 2015

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housing

energy

environment

governance

healthcare

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Cities of Future Towards Technology-Aided Urban Tomorrow

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innovation

water

Transportation

infrastructure

Contents

Event Report e-Uttarakhand 2015

AUGUST 2015 VOLUME 11 n  ISSUE 08 REJUVENATED CITIES: THE ROAD AHEAD

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8 SMART CITY SPECIAL

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TARUN KAPOOR

AMIT YADAV

SRINIVAS RAO

ASHIS SANYAL

PRASHANT CHAUDHARY

DR PSN RAO

Joint Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India

Commissioner, East Delhi Municipal Corporation

Sales Director, Government Sector, Hitachi Data Systems

Former Senior Director, Department of Electronics and Information Technology

Senior Director, Sales- State Government, CA Technology

Chairman, DUAC and Professor & Head, SPA

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TECHNOLOGY

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40 OP AGARWAL

MK SUNIL

ARSHPREET KALSI

Executive Director, Indian School of Business, Mohali

Head of Smart Cities platform, APAC, Autodesk

Research Analyst, Headway Solar

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DHIRAJ WALI

PURUSHOTTAM KAUSHIK KOH LIN JI

Vice President, Bosch Engineering & Business Solution

Managing Director, Cisco Systems India

Group Director, Building and Construction Authority, Singapore

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UPENDER JIT SINGH

DR AJAY KUMAR

MUKTESH K PARDESHI

Managing Director, West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation

Joint Secretary, DeitY, Ministry of Communication and IT, Government of India

Joint Secretary, PSP and CPO, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India

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SAJAY BANSAL

PUNEET KUMAR

SHIBU PAUL

Chairman and Managing Director, Business Octane

Chairman and Managing Director, NYSA Communications

Regional Sales Director, Array Networks India

CURTAIN RAISER - SMART CITY CONCLAVE

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YOGESH DUTTA

PRADEEP NAIR

NILESH GORADIA

ALOK SHARMA

Chief Operation Officer, CP PLUS

Managing Director, Autodesk

Head, Workspace Services & Government Business, India Subcontinent, Citrix

Mayor, Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC)

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BMC INITIATIVES egov / egov.eletsonline.com / August 2015

editorial

Going Smart as the Option

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t’s been quite some time since the city planners have been raising concerns over the unabated influx of population in urban areas, more so in the metropolitan cities, in search of better future prospects and quality of life. It is believed that India’s urban headcount would hit 814 million by 2050 — kind of mass urbanisation seen before only in China. This has already begun to tell on the limited urban resources, like land, water, energy, etc. In fact, many of the large cities are already bursting at the seams.

In this backdrop, the Central Government’s announcements to develop 100 Smart Cities, more recently Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) for 500 cities, and Housing for All by 2022 are timely moves. Cities like Varanasi, Vizag, Amaravati, Ajmer, etc., are already on the drawing board, while in Gandhinagar work on the country’s first Smart City goes on in full swing.

Housing short-supply and poor transportation infrastructure—two major urban issues—coupled with lack of sanitation and other civic services, plague most of the Tier-I and II cities. Experts blame undue rural focus of subsequent governments for the present state of urban affairs. This led to complete neglect of cities and their problems.

All that is required to tread the smart city path are a strong political will, meticulous urban planning, unhindered flow of funds and proper public-private sector coordination for effective execution of the plans. Given the focus of the incumbent government, the scenario seems set to change, once and for all. Assuming that things would go the desired way, rejuvenated cities would potentially change the way we live and work, and the way we do business. Smart cities would also have the inbuilt mechanism to bolster infrastructure growth and in turn India’s economy on a neverbefore scale.

With a view to highlighting the urgency to develop smart cities in the country, Elets Technomedia is organising the ‘4th Annual Smart City Conference’ in New Delhi on 31st July 2015. The Conference aims to provide a platform to major urban development and eGovernance stakeholders to deliberate on the various models of future cities. Key stakeholders from the Government of India and various state governments, urban local bodies, urban planning experts and industry leaders will share their views at the meet. Besides, those making extraordinary contribution towards realisation of the vision of future cities will also be recognised on the occasion.

This issue of eGov also carries a special section on the impressive initiatives of the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC), which is leaving no stone unturned to convert the City of Lakes into one of the best cities of the country.

Hope you enjoy reading!

ravi guptA Ravi.Gupta@elets.in

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cover Story

smart living

Rejuvenated Cities The Road Ahead Smart initiatives could help amalgamate skill, scale and speed of Urban Evolution in the country, writes noted Government transformation expert and Partner at KPMG, Jaijit Bhattacharya

O

ver the last few months, we have been witnessing, relatively quietly, perhaps the most significant turning point for India’s Urban Infrastructure. The launch of ambitious projects—100 Smart Cities, AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) for 500 Cities and Housing for All—might hold implications that have so far been unimagined. They can potentially change the way we live and work, the way we do business and the way we are perceived by the rest of the world. More importantly, they can certainly constitute the explosive push for India’s economy and its infrastructure, on a scale that will dwarf the growth provided by the

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Golden Quadrilateral project.

To put the magnitude of impact that this decision has, it is important to keep the macro perspective in place. The total cost of renewal of 500 cities is estimated to be roughly around USD 5 trillion; India’s current GDP is about USD 2 trillion. That is exactly how massive these initiatives are.

Thus, the roughly USD 16 billion, committed for the initial Central Government spend, is an important first step towards unlocking the larger, longer term economic activity of upgrading and building smart cities/ rejuvenated cities. Moreover, the initiatives will trigger a virtuous cycle of efficiencies being unleashed in the economy due to the building

Smart living

of efficient cities and habitations. Combined with the Make in India initiative, if the multiplier effect of the spend in building these cities is captured within the Indian economy, it can potentially propel the country towards growth rates that we have never witnessed. This, if the initiatives manage to gain the expected momentum, could lead to an explosive growth in the Indian economy.

What is more heartening to note is that these initiatives might also provide the much-needed growth impetus to the global economy. Vast amounts of steel, cement, electronics, furnishings, electrical equipment, sewage plants, etc. will be required to build these cities. Not all of this will be available in India in the short term. Thus, some of these requirements will be imported from the world over, triggering growth in the global economy, at least to an extent.

However, the things must not stop at just being ‘smart’, the aim is to get smarter and augment efficiencies and scalability. The primary focus is to insert IT and sensors for primarily safety, security, sustainability and energy efficiency of the cities. It, thus, includes leveraging IT and sensors into some other aspects of the city, such as transportation, water management, waste management, smarter municipal management and planning. The evolving cities need to develop mechanisms to address complex economic, political and social issues. The solution perhaps lies in creating ‘Next Generation Cities’ that display unseen levels of sustainability and capacities.

ICT, Data Analytics, Traffic

Management, Energy Management and Citizens will need to scale up and continually reinvent themselves.

Infrastructure, Investments and Implementation might constitute the core pillars for their physical evolution, but only efficient Citizen Engagement and Governance will enable the transformation.

Both Greenfield and Brownfield Smart City Developments will look to utilise ICT at unprecedented levels. Thus, Digital Governance might just become both the means as well as the end of urban evolution and enable the re-imagination of the National eGovernance Plan (NeGP). Simple, Morally Accountable, Responsive and Transparent (SMART) governance (as the Second Administrative Reforms Commission, Eleventh Report, defined the term Smart) might become a reality. Through Aadhaar, we have already witnessed what digitisation can do

cover story

The roughly USD 16 billion committed for the initial Central Government spend is an important first step towards unlocking the larger, longer term economic activity of upgrading and building smart cities/ rejuvenated cities to increase efficiency and ease of governance.

However, given that enormous scale and scope for complexities, challenges remain to be tackled. In addition to the obvious financial and technical hurdles, integrating Smart Cities and societies is a ticklish task. Smart Cities initiative, when juxtaposed with the initiative of Housing for All by 2022 and the Make in India programme, will have highly amplified impact on India, the Indian industry and Indians per se. Thus, implementation has to be smooth and flawless. This calls for hybrid mechanisms and frameworks in place. The resources at stake are huge and equitable distribution is thus imperative.

(The author is also President of Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research and Adjunct Professor at IIT Delhi)

Mehul Lanvers Shah Managing Director, Hannover Milano Fairs India The core objective of a smart city is to make the urban system efficient, costeffective and sustainable using technology. While this initiative is a great vision for our country, the question of viability does arise eventually. At present, there are around 1609 cities in India of which only 10 cities have the status of metropolitan area and these have their own share of challenges in terms of infrastructure related to transport, bandwidth, et al. Having said that, it would take decades to build a new smart city. Therefore, smart urbanisation will have to start from existing cities.

August 2015 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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cover Story

smart living

Urban Planning at Core of

Smart Cities

Prof Chetan Vaidya, Director, School of Planning and Architecture New Delhi, and an ArchitectPlanner with over 30-year experience, emphasises that Urban Planning forms the foundation of any urban mission programme

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verall goals for urban development in India should be creation of sustainable, inclusive and smart urban centres. The Government has launched four urban mission programmes: AMRUT, Smart City, Housing for All and Heritage Cities (HRIDAY). Urban Planning is an important part of and the common thread in the proposed programmes.

Problems of Urban Planning in India are identified as master plans with no relation to real estate markets, low Floor Space Index (FSI) and density, and segregated land use, apart from no linkage of land use with public transport.

Fortunately, some of these issues were part of JnNURM reforms.

In this context, Ahmedabad Master Plan 2021 is a good example. It focuses on compact city, enhanced accessibility, land use linked to transport, incentivising affordable housing, conserving heritage and transit-oriented developments (TODs). There is 50 per cent increase in FSI through payment (for infrastructure). Increase in FSI on BRTS/Metro corridor is from 1.8 to 3.6 to 4.0 on chargeable FSI and concessions for affordable housing, and affordable housing zone with FSI 2.7 all around the city (76 sq km with 15 lakh additional units). All this enable the provision for local and special area plans.

Similarly, reforms in Development Control rules, like ground coverage restriction removed, minimum floor height specified, height restriction removed, etc., have also been introduced. Heritage building owners in old city have been allowed to transfer development rights to other parts of city as well. The credit goes to the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation and the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority, which have communicated very well with the press and citizens.

This mission of building 100 Smart Cities will be implemented through ‘area based’ approach consisting of retrofitting, redevelopment, pan-city initiatives and development of new cities. Under retrofitting, deficiencies in an identified area will be addressed through necessary interventions as in the case of Local Area Plan for the City Centre in Ahmedabad. Redevelopment enables reconstruction of already built-up area that is not amenable for any interventions, to make it smart, as in the case of Bhendi Bazar of Mumbai and West Kidwai Nagar in New Delhi.

Area-based projects should be part of an overall city plan that has land use linked to public transport, higher and variable FSI, marketable FSI, land reserved for affordable housing and mixed land use. These should not be an isolated project-based approach. Private sector can play an important role in affordable housing and needs to be encouraged. Moreover, human dimension with

culture and heritage is more important than just housing and infrastructure.

The School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, has close linkages with the Ministry of Urban Development. We intend to support cities in preparing City Development Plan and Detailed Project Reports, plan and implement reforms, monitor progress of works and especially provide guidance for design of public parks for children.

Moreover, our student studio and thesis projects will be developed within the framework of the four urban programmes. Thus, we shall help cities augment their technical capacities as well augment capacities of future architects and planners to meet the growing demand for human resources in this sector.

Vineet Kshirsagar Senior Director and Group Head- Government Businesses, Oracle The Smart city is a great vision from our Hon’ble Prime Minister. It is viable in the Indian context because the need for the same is very high at present, keeping the vision in mind in terms of how do you leverage the infrastructure and have a smarter usage of the same. However, there are a lot of challenges which need to be overcome and that’s where we need to work hard. Also, in overcoming these challenges, technology can play a very huge role and that is where we believe, as a company, we can provide a lot of solutions for it.

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Jagan Shah

Civic Bodies

ULB Role Crucial in Smart Cities There are innovative and smart ways in which ULBs can become part of the development of Smart Cities without taking the entire burden, points out Jagan Shah, Director, National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), in an interview with Garima Pant of Elets News Network (ENN)

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he Government of India has initiated the ambitious ‘100 Smart Cities’ programme to change the urban landscape and Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) have been given importance in the scheme of things. What is your opinion on this?

The urban sector in our country has to rely on the strengthening of the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and this focus cannot be diluted. There is a relationship between the devolution of powers and the performance of the urban economy. It is actually untenable that the management of a city should be in the hands of an agency which is not answerable to the public. Even from that perspective, ULBs have to play an important role.

We must remember that the Smart City mission requires that ULBs and State Governments collaborate together in the creations of SPVs, and SPVs have professional CEOs. ULBs are presently constrained for various reasons, but on the other side, there are innovative and smart ways in which ULBs can become part of the development of Smart Cities without taking the entire burden. There are capacity constraints, but that is a common

problem cutting across the government and private sector. On the other hand, ULBs have been given substantial responsibilities only since 2005-06. Two things have to be ensured— powers and funds—to be provided effectively to ensure that ULBs perform well.

What initiatives can be taken to empower ULBs in a smarter manner and make them actively involved in the Smart City initiative?

There has to be fairly extensive capacity building efforts, which are going to benefit all the Smart City initiatives as well as they are sub-sets of the 500 cities, which are covered under AMRUT programme. NIUA will be given the strategic responsibility of coordinating all the capacitybuilding initiatives under the AMRUT guidelines.

There is focus on four different areas including Urban Planning; Managing Finance & Revenues; Public Health & Engineering; and Administration with a focus on eGovernance. While talking about smart ways for ULBs, eGovernance factor is going to play an important role. We also have to keep in mind that eGovernance is part of the ‘Digital India’ programme. eGovernance allows the same workforce of a ULB to be more professional and effective.

How important will be the factor of citizen involvement for creating Smart Cities?

The Smart Cities guideline do emphasise quite clearly that the participation of the citizens in the process of creating a vision for their city and defining the roadmap for achieving that vision is important. But public participation needs to be from a perspective that the public has a responsibility to play and not merely a question of a consumer and service provider. The Smart City mission has to leverage the People-PublicPrivate Partnership.

Kaushal Dalal Managing Director, FireEye India An advanced cyber security framework needs to be an intrinsic part of the DNA of the Smart Cities project. Enabling embedded technologies and leveraging the Internet of Things in city infrastructure brings forth risks that need to be managed to ensure public safety. Many organisations in India aren’t able to defend themselves today, and this introduces business risks, national security concerns, and public safety risks. India needs to improve its cyber defence capabilities. The first step is raising awareness. Greater awareness drives more organisations to adopt technologies which help them detect and respond to advanced attacks.

August 2015 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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CLEAN ENERGY

TARUN KAPOOR

The government has tied up with several foreign companies to invest in the renewable energy sector in India while encouraging Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) without any limits.

Tarun Kapoor, Joint Secretary, Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, Government of India, in conversation with Gautam Debroy of Elets News Network (ENN) speaks on how green energy is the need of the hour

Renewable Energy Gets Govt Push

H

ow do you plan to boost the renewable energy sector in India?

The renewable energy sector in India is divided into two parts: one is off-grid segment and the other, grid-connected one. As the main issue with the grid connected segment is transmission, we have to build proper transmission systems. That is why we are motivating state governments to build such systems.

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We have to encourage distribution companies to buy solar power. For this, we need a revision in the renewable purchase obligation, for which, we have requested to the Power Ministry. Interestingly, the Ministry is also coming up with an amendment in the tariff policy, so that the renewable purchase obligation becomes higher and the enforcement stronger.

We are also talking to financial institutions to join the renewable energy sector. Significantly, the Finance Ministry has recently allowed raising of `5,000 crore through tax-free bonds for

the renewable energy sector. In addition, foreign funding agencies are also coming in a big way. We are appealing our domestic partners to come to the industry. We are also trying not to impose too many restrictions, as the partners think that this is a risky sector. But frankly speaking the risk is less.

Through off-grid segment, we try to light the remote and inaccessible areas. Our main objective is to make such systems more reliable and cost-effective. We target those areas which are not likely to be electrified in the near future.

TARUN KAPOOR

CLEAN ENERGY

How will renewable energy be sustainable?

Renewable energy is sustainable by its very nature, as it comes from the natural sources.

Wastes remain a major concern whether they are released in the air or not. Harnessing renewable energy, such as wind and solar, is the first consideration in sustainable development, because apart from constructing the plant, there is no depletion of mineral resources and no direct air or water pollution. The criteria for any acceptable energy supply will continue to be cost, safety and security of supply as well as environmental considerations.

What are the major target areas for renewable energy?

Our target area is the entire grid. Another major target is that we should increase the penetration level in the grid to around 20 per cent, and out of that, solar should be around 10 per cent.

And, on the off-grid side, we should replace kerosene completely. The Ministry is implementing a programme for providing financial support for electrification of those remote unelectrified villages, where grid extension is either not feasible or not cost-effective, and are not covered under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana. Such villages are provided with basic facilities for electricity and lighting through various renewable energy sources.

How do you encourage both government and private players to invest in renewable energy?

There are several programmes in the government system to encourage renewable energy, like initiatives where the government provides financial support. Loans are provided by financial institutions, like IREDA, PFCI, among others.

We also have some special arrangements; for example, transmission of solar power is free of cost, and there are duty concessions for manufacturing.

We have a Special Area Demonstration Project scheme in the Ministry. It was introduced with the objective of demonstrating application of various renewable energy systems in a project mode at places of national and international importance, including world heritage sites, heritage monuments, religious locations and

Lots of waste is generated daily, which is not treated properly. Once we are able to utilise those, we will be able to serve two purposes, i.e. cleaning up the area and creating clean energy places of public interest, to create greater awareness of renewable energy and to supplement the energy requirement at such locations.

Are you asking foreign companies, too, to come and invest in the energy sector of India?

Do you have any plan for converting waste into renewable energy?

Yes, we are in talks with several foreign countries. In fact, we have already tied up with several foreign companies to come and invest in the sector. We are also encouraging Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) without any limits.

Waste management is a very important area.

Lots of waste is being generated daily, which is not treated properly. Once we are able to utilise those, we will be able to serve the two purposes, i.e. cleaning up the area and creating energy.

But to encourage this, we need right kind of technology in India. And, we have already tied up with several foreign companies as well.

Interestingly, the Ministry of Urban Development is also coming up in a big way to assist in the waste management sector.

Five years down the line, what should be the targeted capacity for renewable energy?

With a five time increase, we aim to generate 1,75,000 MW renewable energy by 2022.

Recently, the Cabinet has also approved 1 lakh MW solar by 2022. So, this is an established target now.

August 2015 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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Expert Opinion

Vikas Aggarwal

Making Smart Cities Work for Us The smartness quotient of a city must revolve around the needs and challenges of the three key stakeholders of the city: government, businesses and citizens, writes Vikas Aggarwal, Executive Director – Advisory Services, E&Y

T

he Government of India has been making substantial investments in Rural Development. Going by the investments pledged in the 11th and 12th Five Year plans, the total budgetary allocation has been `2,91,682 crore and `4,43,261 crore, respectively. But, despite the focus on rural development, there has been a mass movement from rural to urban areas due to better amenities, better infrastructure, better economic growth and greater perceived opportunities for livelihood. This has resulted in unprecedented horizontal and vertical physical growth of urban areas to accommodate the rapid population expansion, which in turn, has resulted in insignificant strain on the cities’ resources, such as housing, transport, health, education, water and energy etc.

As these movements from rural to urban cities continue to grow, the strain on resources would increase exponentially and hence, there would be need for smart and sustainable solutions for better utilisation of limited resources. Intelligent and efficient use of these resources can only be achieved by introducing smart planning and execution methodologies leveraging Information and Communication Technology (ICT), resulting in cost and energy savings, improved service delivery and quality of life, and reduced environmental footprint.

These smart approach and methodologies would support sustainability of cities and encourage innovation and a low-carbon footprint economy.

If cities are looked at holistically, a city strives on a number of core systems composed of different networks, infrastructures and environments related to their key functions.

While shaping the smart cities it is essential that

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the roll-out of smart initiatives are optimally planned and integrated for efficient linkages between transportation, power distribution, water and utilities, waste management etc.

The smartness quotient of a city must revolve around the needs and challenges of the three key stakeholders of the city: government, businesses and citizens, and may be focused on three basic principles viz: yy KNOW: The design of smart city starts with the study of the needs of the stakeholders. A clear understanding of these elements gives a better picture of design requirements. yy TRANSFORM: A city needs to transform its way of functioning as per an integrated, modular design or plan. ICT-enabled infrastructure and services would be available to all stakeholders that would ease the way of life. yy SUSTAIN: With better governance and planning of initiatives and enablers, the growth of smart city may be sustained over

a long period. The sustain phase would include reiterative improvements through well-constituted feedback mechanisms (from process owners and citizens).

Smart city is essentially a well-knit ecosystem of information sharing between the services and key functions communicating among themselves with technology as an enabler.

Enablers are components, which provide the underlying layer of integration among all infrastructure and services components.

These enablers are used by all services to reach stakeholders. It is one of the most crucial enablers and is the paramount for sustainability of such cities. Smart governance provides a stable and result-oriented outlook, ensuring local government is accountable for results, and encourages cooperation among local agencies and promotes public participation.

Smart governance links across-city governance with its citizens and other stakeholders as focus. It integrates public, private and other organisations, so that the city can function efficiently and effectively as one unit. Traditionally, governance mechanism has been decentralised and siloed and has lessthan-optimal citizen participation. It promotes improved decision making and involves all stakeholders. Smart governance hinges heavily on the optimum use of ICT which further supports in maintaining service-level agreements, reduction of time overrun while executing crucial projects.

Information and analytics alone may not be viewed as success parameter of smart city. A smart city requires deployment of ICT across departments with capacity building within departments to support the transitions and make the city life smarter. Smart cities must strongly focus on citizen engagement

Vikas Aggarwal

which requires sharing of data between departments for improved citizen services.

Smart cities around the world have witnessed one-stop centers for all citizen-related services to open an efficient and noiseless two-way communication between government and citizens. Some of the advanced forms of citizen engagement in a smart city are e-voting on city matters, e-participation and citizencentric portals.

Smart cities envision a connected future wherein the city’s energy, water, waste/ sanitation and transportation infrastructures are made more efficient by communicating among each other and its users in real time. A sensor, analytics and information dissemination network joining layers of services together defines a framework for truly smart city with inter and intra sectorial interoperability. This allows a smart city to operate intelligent functions such as inform citizens of their power and water usage and pre-empt or prevent wastages and leakages, help utility providers in anticipating demand and regulating flow according to requirement.

The technology trends such as cloud computing and mobility have crucial role in the ICT enablement outlined here. Mobility has increasingly become a significant aspect in the lives of today’s citizens. Convergence across computing and mobility platforms has allowed for envisaging a paradigm where an ecosystem for application development can be exploited by third-party application providers, which may then be used by citizens (available for free or for a nominal charge) for getting access to specific data for monitoring management and at times even controlling remote sensorenabled functions.

Integrated visibility leads to integrated planning, execution and monitoring.

Integration of services in smart city enables

Expert Opinion

Smart city is essentially a well-knit ecosystem of information sharing between the services and key functions communicating among themselves with technology as an enabler monitoring of parameters such as power consumption, water consumption, traffic delays and waste produce. This information is also useful to citizens to take plan actions as deemed fit.

Building Smart cities requires a set of overarching guidelines or policy directives, which shall help lay the foundational principles. A broad-based digital agenda encompassing the broadband regulatory environment, establishment and operation of digital service infrastructures, development of skilling requirements of individuals involved in the service delivery process, establishment of laws regarding copyright and IPRs,

formulation of cyber security strategy and generally identify computing infrastructure and networking backbone is essential. The overarching digital agenda may take into consideration citizen engagement, legal and regulatory support, access and awareness, inclusion of open government and industry participation for making the cities smart and workable by meeting today’s demand and provisioning enough safeguard mechanisms for future.

(Mayank Dwivedi, senior professional with Advisory Services at E&Y also contributed to this article. Views expressed are personal)

Sanjeev Gupta Managing Director, Health & Public Services, Accenture A Smart City is the one that effectively delivers public and civic services to citizens and businesses in an integrated and resource-efficient way while enabling innovative collaborations to improve quality of life and help grow the local and national economy. Accenture has developed an integrated approach and offerings in the intelligent city space. Our proven capabilities across the intelligent cities, from strategy to design to implementation, is what sets us apart.

August 2015 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

15

CIVIC BODY

AMIT YADAV

Gearing up for Retrofit Cities Major roadblocks in redeveloping cities into smart ones would be revamping the infrastructure, planning it futuristically and ensuring that the civic bodies concerned are geared up to meet the requirements of such cities, says Amit Yadav, Commissioner, East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), sharing his insights with Elets News Network (ENN)

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What are the challenges in building Smart Cities? ith the Smart Cities buzz going all around, what is your take on the

If you are taking up a new redevelopment area, then it’s a challenge for issues, like land records, land entitlement, reframing building by­laws, and so on. One needs to ensure that various amenities like water, roads, parking are being catered to. Most importantly, it should be a collective effort to effect redevelopment.

Broadly speaking, major roadblocks would be getting the infrastructure, planning it and at the same time ensuring that the various civic bodies are geared up to provide the infrastructure.

concept?

For understanding the Smart Cities, there is no fixed definition as such, but yes smart cities basically means for the convenience of the citizens and how the city is geared to ensure that the citizens are facilitated through optimum infrastructure, retrofitting and re­ development, connectivity, transportation, linking it through wireless network providing solutions for the various citizen-government interface, so on and so forth. It’s basically ease of living in an area. Smart City or 100 Smart Cities have to be taken up in a well-planned manner, which is already there.

How are the state governments, especially in the NCR, coping with the Smart City initiatives?

The Smart City would require a proposal by the state governments to the Ministry of Urban Development for consideration and then they have their evaluation system. This keeps happening and based on the proposals,

they pick up the projects. If an area is identified for being developed as a Smart City, let’s say within the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) jurisdiction, then it would be EDMC’s responsibility to also contribute towards the project. This way, the government proposal gets integrated with the municipal bodies, whether it is in terms of upkeep of roads, sanitation, providing civic amenities, etc. If it’s about redevelopment and retrofitting, then the corporations would have greater roles to play, like building new areas, bylaws, amalgamation of laws, providing various facilities, etc.

Do you think redeveloping cities has an edge over creating Smart Cities?

Redevelopment is one way, but things like land title, amalgamation of laws and expansion of roads are crucial issues for redevelopment.

If the streets are small, vehicles can’t move even during emergencies, be it fire brigade or police vehicles. Mobility emerges as one of the major concerns in retrofitting. So more than the revamp, it is the core issues that the urban local bodies needs to work on. This approach alone can help build sustainable and intelligent cities.

N Baijendra Kumar Chairman, NRDA and ACS, Govt of Chhattisgarh A Smart City is a hassle-free place where people can avail all basic facilities and live an easy life. We started developing Naya Raipur as a Smart City before the ‘100 Smart Cities’ project emerged. We are well on track to make Naya Raipur the first Smart City of India. The Naya Raipur Development Authority (NRDA) intends to come up with a city run on state-of-the-art technologies for better delivery of citizen services.

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Event

Month

Place

July - August - September, 2015

Smart City Madhya Pradesh PSU Awards & Summit

World Education Summit

Maharashtra Cooperative Summit Elets Port Summit

Knowledge Exchange

FIPS

August August August

Bhopal New Delhi New Delhi

Governance Governance Education

September

Mumbai

BFSI

September September

Mumbai Punjab

Infrastructure Governance

October - November - December, 2015

eMeghalaya Cloud Gov

Secure IT Maharashtra Knowledge Exchange eIndia

eJharkhand

World Education Summit Knowledge Exchange

School Leadership Summit eUttar Pradesh

October October October October October November November November December December December

New Delhi Shillong New Delhi Mumbai Srinagar Hyderabad Ranchi Dubai Port Blair New Delhi Lucknow

January - February - March, 2016

BFSI Leadership Summit eOdisha / Smart City eBihar

Healthcare Leaders’ Forum Secure IT

Smart City Rajasthan Knowledge Exchange

Vertical

January January February February February February March

Mumbai Bhubaneswar Patna Mumbai New Delhi Jaipur Shimla

BFSI Governance Governance Governance Governance Governance Governance Education Governance Education Governance

BFSI Governance Governance Health Governance Governance Governance

SMART TECHNOLOGY

SRINIVAS RAO

W

hat will be your role in the proposed ‘100 Smart Cities’ project of the Government?

Hitachi Data Systems believes in connecting business and society through technology. We are looking at growth opportunities in the 100 Smart Cities campaign in India for our social innovation solutions, and we are working with the Government and ecosystem players to make the Smart Cities project and the Digital India vision a success.

The Smart Cities project will bring in tons of structured and unstructured data from across various governmental departments, and there is a need of timely agile data analysis and management. Also, there is an increased importance of efficient storage solutions to store, process and manage data in a meaningful manner and translate these into real-time benefits.

Social innovation is Hitachi Data Systems’ holistic approach to help businesses and societies address the challenges and opportunities being sparked by the seismic shifts occurring across today’s business, technology and cultural landscapes. HDS uniquely combines its deep domain expertise in information management, data analytics and IT and the rich industrial heritage of our Hitachi sister companies to deliver on its vision for social innovation.

Our social innovation solutions include verticals like automotive, power, railway systems, water management, and consumer durables.

The newest vertical to be added to social innovation solutions list is healthcare, which HDS introduced recently in APAC region. It comes as no surprise that all these social innovation solutions by HDS are cloud based.

How can we improve various sectors like education, healthcare among others by transforming a normal city into a Smart City?

Hitachi Data Systems is uniquely positioned to help societies and businesses solve some of the world’s biggest problems – from public safety to sustainability, transportation and healthcare.

HDS calls this social innovation.

Hitachi has implemented solutions like traffic management, water management, smart

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Social Innovations for High-Tech Cities With the 100 Smart Cities project announced by the Government of India hogging the limelight, the corporate world has pitched in help convert this dream project into reality. Srinivas Rao, Sales DirectorGovernment Sector, Hitachi Data Systems, speaks about the plans his company has for this venture with Nirmal Anshu Ranjan of Elets News Network (ENN) grids, electric vehicles’ charging management, and low carbon infrastructures in several cities including Greater Manchester, New Mexico and Hawaii. The firm has also tasted some early success in India and is already

working in Dahej city in Gujarat where it is creating low carbon, environmental-friendly infrastructure. Further, it is doing some power and water management projects in the country as well.

SRINIVAS RAO

SMART TECHNOLOGY

Smart cities entail lots of electronic and digital applications. How can we guard these applications and devices from cyber threats?

IT will play a major role in developing smart cities in India. In order to guarantee service continuity and integrity, the ICT systems that oversee and control a ‘smart city’ need to be designed, from inception, with cyber security, robustness, reliability, privacy, information integrity, and crucially, resilience in mind.

This drives the need to create an ecosystem of ICT vendors, energy suppliers, building companies, health providers and education bodies; all engaged in providing state-of-the-art solutions in every field.

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. By conceiving interconnected urban systems with security and information protection in mind, city administrators will be able to ensure safety and wellbeing for citizens and businesses alike.

How will the Smart Cities project boost the Indian economy and attract investors from across the globe?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Government has recently launched 100 Smart Cities initiative by pledging over $1.2 billion in investment to this effort over the next year. The investment in each Smart City is estimated to be in excess of $10 billion, presenting a tremendous economic growth opportunity. This is expected to not only change the urban landscape of the entire country but would also give an impetus to the economy.

In India, given its demographics and diversity, unique opportunities exist for developing “smarter” cities which attract increased invest-

ment, employ innovative technology, create environmentally sustainable solutions, grow operational efficiencies, and improve the lives of urban citizens.

The development of India’s Smart Cities project will act as a necessary catalyst for economic growth of the country through a number of significant drivers including increased FDI inflow, increased competitiveness and job creation across industries.

The Government has already created the momentum and has come up with the clear policy document, which it has opened for the private sector. So, it is a big initiative that has been taken from the government itself. In addition to it, there are a lot of private organisations too that are showing very keen interest in participating in the Smart Cities project.

How do you plan to expand your presence in the Indian market?

The Indian market has been a key contributor to the Hitachi Data Systems global business and is one of the fastest growing markets in the region. India is the second largest market for data center infrastructure within the Asia

Pacific region, and it is also going to be the second fastest growing market in Asia Pacific in 2015. We see the next five years to be promising for us from a business standpoint.

In India, we are focusing on BFSI, IT & ITeS, telecom, media & entertainment, government sector among others. With this rapidly changing marketplace, we not only transform our business, but we must be constantly evaluating our partner ecosystem. We must design it in such a way to create the right coverage for success: across business size, customer requirements, geography, vertical market competencies and solutions, and desired customer business outcomes.

With the Government of India opening up a variety of projects under the Digital India campaign, we expect demand to come in from various eGovernance projects. Additionally, Indian enterprises will focus on creating integrated data centers for optimising existing IT assets and delivering non-stop IT services to business. This will drive greater emphasis on public cloud and software-defined networking, and will drive demand for smarter and more secure storage infrastructure and data management systems.

Paul Coates Vice President, Channels, Asia Pacific and Japan, Riverbed Technology In its bid to transform the country’s urban landscape, 100 Smart Cities is one of the most promising projects by the Indian Government. The ICT solutions have inevitably emerged as key tools required for the transformation. The use of integrated technology platforms that are easily accessible across various devices is certainly crucial to provide access, transparency, speed and participation in public services.

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SMART CITY

ASHIS SANYAL

Frequently Asked Questions

W

hat is a Smart City?

In a Smart City, the investments made in social and human capital and in different communication infrastructure would create a sustainable economic development and maintain a high standard of living, along with a wise management of natural resources through participatory action and engagement between authorities and citizens.

The ‘smartness’ should prevail in economy, people, mobility, environment and in living.

When an existing city can be called a Smart one?

When the objects or processes of a city, from any existing mechanism, transform into specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound intelligent and self-aware systemic processes, which lead to a faster, cheaper, efficient and effective platform for the stakeholders’ engagement, then the city can be called a Smart City.

What is the most important component of a Smart City?

ICT is the most important component of a Smart City. It can be deployed abundantly in the city authority’s business functions of planning, development, administration, execution of all sorts of citizen services and monitoring.

ICT is the common thread for qualifying a Smart City in the context of electronicallygoverned simple, accountable, responsive and transparent city authority.

How ICT can be meaningfully used in a Smart City?

ICT can be very successfully used for planning and development, important decision making by obtaining online feedback from citizens, infrastructure creation and maintenance. It can

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also provide informational, interactional and transactional services to the citizens, management of city assets like transport systems, lands, roads, natural resources and environment, and in other innovative applications for specific and new services for citizens.

What the ‘governance’ should look like in a Smart City?

In a Smart City, eGovernance is embedded in the functioning of almost every administrative and service providing department. The entire governance would be ‘online’ leading to a ‘less paper’ governance environment. Citizen will have minimum physical interactions with any

government department to obtain a scheduled service.

What are the important steps to achieve ‘smart government’ in a city?

The citizens should approach a single window with many channels for all interactions with the authorities, like one city portal having hyperlinks to departmental websites that can be accessed through Internet. All payment transactions would be done online. A governance mechanism comprehensively joined at the back-end using ICT is the singular step to achieve a smart government.

ASHIS SANYAL

SMART CITY

How this ‘online service’ to citizens can be achieved?

Under the NeGP, e-District MMP has implemented online delivery of a basket of citizencentric services at the district administration level. This model can be replicated for a city where all citizen-centric services can be connected at the back-end. It can also be provided through a city service portal. For the back-end automation of city departments, another MMP, that is, e-Office, can be replicated where the city authority can take executive decisions on mandatory delivery of all services electronically.

Can ICT be used effectively for public transportation system in a city?

Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) is a seminal pre-requisite for any Smart City. ‘Intelligence’ would come from the use of GPS in the public transport vehicles. It will be capturing traffic-related data at strategic locations and transmission over dedicated high speed data communication network, comprehensive monitoring and control of traffic mobility, electronic signalling system, monitoring and control of various components of multi-modal public transport like Metro, rapid transit system, feeder transport, separate dedicated pathways for buses, cycles, pedestrians crossings, etc. ICT can be used in all aspects of creation and maintenance of city transport infrastructure with automated operation.

What are the other areas in city where ICT can be efficiently used?

In a Smart City, GIS systems can be used for information gathering and decision making for asset management and maintenance.

Many commercial COTS software solutions, coupled with GIS software, are now available, which create efficient MIS for management of

fixed and movable assets of a city. Further, a City Portal can be created, which would assist collaborative information exchange between citizens, businesses, knowledge institutions and government departments. ICT can also be used to create smart mobility for citizens and tourists for information exchange in physical space, or by deploying tele-text embedded digital screens at strategic locations and by smart citizenfriendly road signage. In cyber-space, it can be accessed through kiosks for public telecommunications and Internet network.

What makes ICT deployment in a city so feasible?

Development of sensor technology and availability of various types of robust electronic sensors, RFID tags, CCTV, wireless transceivers, etc., singularly made large-scale deployment of end-to-end ICT-based systems in a Smart City, such sensors located at strategic data capturing points can capture and send high speed data through integrated transmission network.

Can government departments handle all these seemingly ‘hi-tech’ activities?

Globally, it is a practice to adopt PPP model to deliver citizen services and for many other attributes, including infrastructure creation and

management of a smart city. The technology part, associated risks and non-sovereign activities, are passed on to the private partner. The Government stipulates the service guidelines and robust Service Level Agreements (SLA), with provision of penalty for violations and incentives for better achievements.

What the government has to do now?

The first and foremost job of the government is to create appropriate policy environment to facilitate institutional reforms so that singularity of agency in city governance is established unambiguously. Single room with a single roof and single window for our city governance structure is absolutely necessary. Secondly, the government has to ensure availability of the two essential ingredients, namely, uninterrupted, reliable, clean power supply and demand-assigned high speed bandwidth in the designated smart cities, for the technology interventions to take off smoothly. The government has to also create an environment conducive for bringing in culture of smart living..

(The author is former Senior Director of the Department of Electronics and IT – DeitY - and presently Consulting for World Bank-aided e-Governance projects in India and abroad)

Srikanth Gopalakrishnan Vice President-Product Management, SAP Labs SAP’s ‘Urban Matters’ programme is based on the idea that improving livability, simplifying government and nurturing local economies are at the root of a sustainable city. So, the concept of Smart Cities is not new to SAP and we have been actively working in this domain for some time with the aim of helping governments deliver efficient governance.

August 2015 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

21

smart technology

Prashant Chaudhary

Making Cities Secure, Accessible & Efficient Creating Smart Cities is a herculean task, wherein the onus of finishing almost 98 per cent of the work lies on the shoulders of the private sector, and that is where the private players will benefit from the project most, says Prashant Chaudhary, Senior Director, Sales – State Government, CA Technologies, in an interaction with Akanki Sharma of Elets News Network (ENN)

T

he Government of India has launched the ambitious 100 Smart Cities programme.

What kind of potential does CA Technologies see in this?

If the government figures are to be believed, urban population in India is expected to rise by more than 400 million people and reach to 814 million by 2050. To handle this kind of influx on account of rapid urbanisation, the Government’s initiative to create 100 Smart Cities by 2022 is a timely step.

The concept of a Smart City goes way beyond the transactional relationships between citizens and service providers. It is essentially enabling and encouraging the citizen to become a more active and participative member of the community, like providing feedback on the quality of services or the state of roads and the built environment, adopting a more sustainable and healthy lifestyle, volunteering for social activities or supporting minority groups.

The government intends to accomplish the task through a public-private consensus, with the private sector finishing almost 98 per cent of it. Therefore, it opens a plethora of opportunities for not only the government but also the private sector. This is where players like us can pitch in.

What are the global solutions CA Technologies offers for developing a Smart City? How can those be implemented in India?

Our products and solutions can help

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make a city ‘Smart’ by making it Secure, Accessible and Efficient.

Our security solutions provide a complete identity and access management platform that enable this project to securely deliver new online services quickly across web, mobile and APIs, enable secure collaboration between governments and citizens, and protect key assets from insider threats and external attacks.

These solutions also reduce the cost of security and compliance management.

In a Smart City, it is a must to have a secure IT Infrastructure. In fact, the Smart City computing environment is much more complex than others, as there are numerous users of various types. Then, increased mobility, heterogeneous IT users, disappearing perimeters, virtualisation, cloud computing, social networking, etc, add to the IT environment complexity. So, we now need fine-grained authorisation.

As for accessibility, success of a Smart City project depends on extent of the accessibility of public services to the citizens. Services depending on IT infrastructure need the resources to work fine and deliver as expected.

An efficient infrastructure management, along with integrated application monitoring, helps enable IT and service delivery teams to keep the utilisation rate high at lower cost.

Besides, 360-degree monitoring of infrastructure, application and services is compulsory to correlate and analyse information from infrastructure, application performance and other IT management tools in real time to accurately visualise public services, calculate service quality and to pinpoint what

impacts quality and what puts it at risk.

In this context, capacity management solutions help maintain higher service levels across high-volume physical, virtual and cloud environments while helping to reduce capital expenditures and operating expenditures associated with hardware, software, power and cooling.

What according to you will be the challenges in the implementation of Smart City programme in India?

In a Smart City, there should be smooth flow of information apart from easy accessibility to basic amenities and services. So, in India, the Smart City project could take around a decade to reach fruition. In order to meet the desired deadline,

Prashant Chaudhary

clearances need to be issued at the earliest and this requires persistence and commitment on the part of the government. Moreover, the technology industry is undergoing constant changes with newer technologies coming into the foray and hence the government needs to be constantly in the loop about the same. The basic aim of the smart cities is to enable people to enjoy sustainable economic growth and high standards of living. This will require the community to actively participate in energy saving, implementation of new technologies and decisions to improve quality of life. For this, special programmes should be undertaken to educate the people in this direction.

Another major challenge is the lack of skill

Security Solutions Security solutions provide a complete identity and access management platform that enables a Smart City project to:  Securely deliver new online services quickly across Web, mobile, and APIs;  Securely collaborate between the Government and citizens;  Protect key assets from insider threats and external attacks; and  Reduce the cost of security and compliance management.

smart technology

The products and solutions of CA Technologies can help make a city smart by making it Secure, Accessible and Efficient. Our security solutions protect key assets from insider threats and external attacks. These solutions also reduce the cost of security and compliance management sets and the need to train and develop a skilled workforce, which will consume a majority of the government’s finances and time.

Are you looking at any partnerships for developing smart cities in India?

The Smart City initiative undertaken by the Government cannot be completed without involving private players like IT solution providers. CA Technologies works very closely with various state governments in the area of e-governance and other technology-based civic projects. To this end, Mobility, Cloud and analytics are the three platforms through which we are aiming to embark on our governmentrun IT projects.

What is CA Technologies vision for a Smart City in India?

Although the definition of a Smart City is yet to

fully evolve, a high-tech city must have adequate IT infrastructure for providing essential services to citizens at their doorsteps. There are many technological platforms involved, including automated sensor networks and data centres.

Though this may sound futuristic, it is now likely to become a reality as the Smart City movement catches up in India. Without ICT, a Smart City cannot function properly, and there is constant need for monitoring the IT infrastructure.

Every service in such a city, ranging from energy management, pollution control, traffic monitoring, parking area monitoring etc., depends on network and communication services, forming a digital interaction between citizens and services. The IT infrastructure is, therefore, required to be evaluated and monitored through a Control Centre. Our vision for a Smart City is to be fully equipped and we are constantly working towards developing systems that could help in integrating the same.

August 2015 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

23

EXPERT OPINION

DR P S N RAO

In the entire process of creating Smart Cities, efficiency remains the key factor, and in order to achieve efficiency, use of modern technology is imperative, writes Dr P S N Rao, Chairman, DUAC and Professor & Head, SPA, New Delhi

T

he Government of India has launched the Smart Cities programme as a flagship programme under the Ministry of Urban Development, with a view to meet the challenge of urbanisation in the country. While only 31 per cent of the population of India lives in urban areas, it contributes as much as 63 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product as of the year 2011 and this is slated to rise to 75 per cent by 2030. Obviously, this requires comprehensive development of physical, social, economic and institutional infrastructure so as to prepare and manage the challenges posed by this kind of growth.

The programme of smart cities aims to help cities acquire better infrastructure including water supply, electricity, sanitation, mobility, affordable housing, digital connectivity, sustainable environment, safety and security, health, education and good governance with citizen participation.

In the entire gamut of things, finances are the key. This has been addressed by a huge budgetary allocation of `48,000 crores. This works out to nearly `100 crores for each city every year, for 5 years, for 100 cities.

In addition to this funding which is to come from the Central Government, funds can be mobilised from various other sources as well.

In the entire process, efficiency is the key and in order to achieve efficiency, use of modern technology is imperative.

Water Management Efficient water management is one of the key areas of intervention as this is an element of basic infrastructure. While efforts would be needed to identify and procure new additional sources of water for drinking, it is equally important to first manage the existing supplies

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Smart City Development Needs Smart Technology properly. Firstly, leak detection is very important. For this, there are modern technologies available to check underground water leaks.

Savings effected in wastage could be as high as 25 per cent. Rainwater harvesting is another area where technology would play a major role in saving this precious resource. Further, recycling and reuse of waste water is another area where modern technology could be profitably employed. Yet another area is in water audit in terms of both quantity and quality. Often, local agencies are at a loss when it comes to water

accounting. Use of modern meters can help in monitoring water use and also help in charging in an appropriate manner.

Sanitation and Waste Management Cities generate a lot of waste which can be recycled and used. In the collection, transportation, treatment, recycling, reuse, etc., there are many new technologies which can be employed by urban local bodies in order to not only keep cities clean and healthy but also make the

DR P S N RAO

EXPERT OPINION

system commercially viable for private operators to play a meaningful role. Mechanisms could be devised for making public-private partnerships happen, maybe with some subsidy from the government as well. In fact, this would help in making buildings and campuses ‘green’.

Energy Management Urban areas and buildings are energy guzzlers. A lot of energy is to be used for a variety of purposes, particularly in air-conditioning and vertical transportation. Proper design of buildings, use of appropriate materials and techniques can help to a great extent in saving energy consumption. Use of solar, wind and biogas can also contribute to saving energy from the grid and thereby cut down costs.

Water heating, lighting, etc. can all be taken care of by solar systems as we have a large number of days with good sunlight. By proper articulation of openings in walls and intelligent use of daylight, use of lighting during day time can be cut down substantially. Even the use of indoor color has a major role to play in the amount of artificial lighting needed inside buildings. Use of modern glazing systems to keep solar heat out and allow natural light in is possible. All these efforts combined together can go a long way in efficient energy management.

Mobility Urban mobility is essential for efficiency in the city and a good quality of life. All segments of the population, be it school going children, office going people, women, elderly or the physically challenged need to move in the city. In almost all the cities of the country, mobility is a major issue. As a result, a lot of time and energy is wasted in transportation. No single solution is available. However, a combination of various types of mass public transportation systems can help one achieve safe, speedy, comfortable

and affordable public transportation systems.

Once this kind of infrastructure is put in place, private modes, particularly cars, will automatically go off the roads. Further, personal modes such as cycles need to be provided for so that youngsters could be encouraged to use bicycle as a means of transport. Whether it is a high speed train system, a metro, monorail, bus rapid transit or electric cars, technology has a major role to play in easing the problems posed by transportation in urban areas. Further, by integrating mobility with landuse by way of transit oriented development (TOD), efficiencies could be achieved.

Housing and Landuse One of the most problematic areas is affordable housing for the low income population. The huge demand – supply gap in housing is partly due to the fact that we are unable to enhance the supply in a speedy manner. For this, there are many prefabrication technologies which can speed up the process of construction of housing. Speed in construction can help in reduction of costs and prices. Further, there are many technologies available and these need

to be encouraged for smart building. Further, housing has to be seen as a part of the overall landuse. High density housing can help in more compact developments and reduce the land component per apartment and thereby reduce costs of housing. Mixed use developments also help in cross subsidy which can also contribute in reduction of costs. By integrating housing into a transit oriented development (TOD), even far off residential hubs would get occupied quickly and the gestation period of housing projects could be reduced.

Governance Urban local governance is essential for the success of a smart city programme. Further, it also essential for long term sustenance of cities.

Public information portals, grievance redressal mechanisms using web portals, electronic service delivery, property tax management, citizen engagement, participation, safety management and urban policing, etc., are all possible by using modern technologies. In fact, the key to the success of the smart city programme is the way we start adapting ourselves to more efficient systems of technology and management.

M N Vidyashankar President, India Electronics & Semiconductor Association Smart city is a city using information and communication technologies to improve the quality and standard of urban services. It offers enhanced facilities to the citizens in terms of technology at a reduced cost, and also engages the citizens effectively. Sectors that have been developing smart city technology include government services, environment, transport and traffic management, energy, health care, water and waste, etc.

August 2015 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

25

EXPERT OPINION

O P AGARWAL

Challenges in Executing Smart City Initiative The recently launched programmes like 100 Smart Cities and 500 AMRUT cities are extremely important for the future growth of the nation, writes O P Agarwal, Executive Director, Indian School of Business, Mohali

O

ne of the first few programmes that the new Government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced was development of 100 Smart Cities. This was visionary and recognised the need for building our urban areas, so as to foster our economic growth. As economies move from being primarily based on agriculture to being increasingly based on industry and services, there is a need for urban agglomerations to come up. This has happened all over the world and India can be no exception.

Therefore, it is important that we focus on building our cities. Unfortunately, this was neglected for the last several decades, with the focus being on rural development. As a

One of the most important barriers in implementation of Smart Cities project will be the lack of capacity at the city level in planning urban areas in a holistic manner result, our cities have remained inadequate in providing the required services to its citizens housing, water, sanitation, transport, healthcare, education, etc. Therefore, the recently launched programmes like 100 Smart Cities and 500 AMRUT cities are extremely important for the future growth of the nation.

This brings us to the point of what is ‘Smart’. While some believe that Smartness comes out of deploying technology, primarily IT-based systems, to offer services, others do not agree. They believe that there are several other dimensions to smartness

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and that IT is only a tool for smartness, not an end in itself.

The key challenge in developing our Smart Cities will be in developing good Smart City plans. These plans will capture the essentials of the “Smartness” that a city desires. Preparing such plans in a well integrated and coordinated way, with a common vision is Smart. Typically, such plans are prepared in a fragmented manner by individual departments. There is no common vision and, at best, there is only a common land use plan. There is little consultation with citizens and little effort in

getting their feedback. Thus, even though the Smart City and AMRUT initiatives are extremely important, the challenge will lie in implementation.

One of the most important barriers to its implementation will be the lack of capacity at the city level in planning urban areas in a comprehensive and holistic manner. Therefore, capacity building will have to be a very important component of such an initiative.

Capacity building plans will, themselves, need to be developed in an integrated manner.

Capacities are required at the individual level as well as the institutional level. Any capacity building programme will have to encompass education and training, research, development of databases and development of decision support systems to aid and guide decision makers. All of these will have to be embedded in effective knowledge platforms and widely disseminated.

The Indian School of Business (ISB) is working towards contributing to a large capacity building effort through (1) development of a Smart Cities Index (SCI) that would rate cities, and (2) the organisation of Smart City Planning Labs (SCPL). The idea of a SCI is to allow comparison across cities on how these are performing vis-à-vis each other and also to compare these across time, so that city can compare its performance over time.

The idea of SCPL is to help cities think through their Smart City plans in a structured manner. These labs aim to have a vision and broad framework of actions developed by the city leadership and then pass on to consultants for a more detailed exercise of developing the Smart City plan. This would enable greater ownership of the Smart City plan by the city and good starting point for consultants to do their more detailed exercise.

SEPTEMBER 2015, MUMBAI

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 Get an insight into the broader governance, IT priorities and initiatives  Forge and diversify partnerships with governments, businesses and other organisations  Capitalise on innovative opportunities and make intelligent, informed IT investment choices

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M K SUNIL

H

aving stayed in Singapore for some years, I have always been thrilled by the city’s beauty, the high degree of cleanliness, and the uber level of disciplined civic sense. All these have helped to build the city from scratch in the last 50 years and made it one of the most advanced cities in the world, with a per capita GDP just about equal to the US. I moved back to India a few years back and since then, I have witnessed our country’s rapid urbanisation, year over year. We boast of sprawling buildings and extensive metro skylines. And, we feel proud about our milestones in architecture and marvel at infrastructure wonders like the Golden Quadrilateral highway network. The Mumbai International Airport was recently adjudged the world’s best and there are many more such reasons to cheer. Ironically, and unfortunately, we also have the world’s largest chawl (slums) in Mumbai. Almost 70 per cent of Indians still live in rural India. Urban India presents no rosy picture either, with a good deal of it steeped in poverty, homelessness, scarcity of every kind and inadequate sanitation.

With an urban population set to touch 814 mil-

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Making

Cities

Livable

By 2050, as 800 million urbanites throng India’s cities, pushing their already-stretched and creaking infrastructure to the edge, there will be pressure on any government for better living conditions. New developments in design technology can show the way for hardpressed city administrations, writes M K Sunil, Head of Smart Cities platform, APAC, Autodesk lion by 2050, India faces the kind of mass urbanisation only seen before in China. Many of our biggest cities are already bursting at the seams. Last year, the new government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the plan for developing 100 Smart Cities in India. Cities like Varanasi,

Vizag, Amaravati, Ajmer, etc., are already on the drawing board, while in Gandhinagar, work on the country’s first Smart City is already on. The government would need to cough up around $1 trillion if this plan has to take off, according to an estimate by top business advisory KPMG.

M K SUNIL

Most of these 100 cities would probably be developed as Brownfield ventures, where experts would set to work on existing cities, transforming them into smart ones. As things stand, these cities are bleeding resources and sustainability is an economic nightmare.

Far from being planned urban spaces, these are breeding grounds for diseases. Drainage, damaged roads, pavements and public transport, everything is an issue. Land value is skyrocketing. Prices of commodities are up.

People spend a significant part of their life on the road. What with all the traffic jams, chaos, din and bustle. Day after day, commuters trudge their way through all of this and somehow make it to their offices – at last. In the process, they lose out on quality of life, not to speak of peace of mind, something they have long since given up.

Take greenhouse emissions. Cities account for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions.

Add to this, combined sewage overflows and air pollution. Cities will continue to grow and their total land cover will almost double by 2050. With the current approach to managing cities, we are not very far from an economic implosion set off by severe manmade conditions. Smog, flash floods, viral diseases, polluted air and water included. It is true that cities are accommodating a popula-

financial inclusion with IT-powered worldclass urban spaces.

So, what are the options on the government’s table?

Smart Cities can help promote sustainability, resource management, energy efficiency, which dovetail into better governance. However, unlike other smart devices, which crowd our daily lives, Smart Cities can never be transplanted to the Indian landscape or copy-pasted lock-

Cities account for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions. Add to this, combined sewage overflows and air pollution. With the current approach to managing cities, we are not very far from an economic implosion set off by severe man-made conditions tion 5-10x of what their planners originally had in mind. No wonder they are so hamstrung in areas like transportation, energy, water and emergency response systems. The government has difficult task cut out for it: develop cities, attract business and top talent, make them economically sustainable, and drive quality of life for all citizens. They must also manage the influx of migrants looking for better livelihood. Sure enough, there is a real tightrope to walk, balancing digital and

stock-barrel from somewhere. There are endless challenges – technical, societal, financial and in governance, which we ourselves must resolve because only we can do it. As a first step, the government must make India’s top 100 cities livable. Smart City is a natural build out of this infrastructure. Sophisticated Greenfield projects can’t be built while giving short shrift to basic infrastructure and the renewal of the country’s cities in decline.

CORPORATE

Technology companies see huge opportunities with the 100 Smart City projects, and are huddling up with the idea of embedding the cities with sensors, gadgets and Internet.

However, it is important to give some thought to how these cities can be best designed keeping in mind the citizen’s right to a sustainable and livable (and shall I say ‘lovable’?) urban space. ‘Smart’ can come next. In this process, we should also understand what resources and entities in the proposed city need to be equipped with measuring instruments. To achieve this, we need to invite planners, designers and engineers to the table early on, so all construction parameters can be digitally visualised and manipulated before we go about with the actual construction.

Barcelona’s famed IESE business school and Stanford University have identified 150-odd smart cities globally, like Tokyo, Osaka, Yokohama, Kawasaki, Kitakyushu and Toyama, as pioneers in solar energy, smart waste management and smart grids that serve both households and the community at large. E-mobility, which puts light rapid transit and electronic vehicles ahead of all else, is also a key feature of these trailblazing cities. These are lessons for Indian cities as they prepare for the take-off.

Sustainable design, good governance and transparent metrics combined with a putting-peopleat-the-heart-of-things mindset will be the key to making not just 100 but every city in India, including yours and mine, smart and livable. A city that resonates with every citizen and draws the quip - ‘I am loving it’- from each one.

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SMART ENERGY

ARSHPREET KALSI

Smart Grids Need Fast-Tracking Smart grid technologies are the need of the hour as these are vital to manage our country’s growing electricity demands, writes Arshpreet Kalsi, Research Analyst with Headway Solar

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he application of 21st century information technology and innovations in computing have become vital for managing a growing and diversifying grid network. Smart grid technologies are the need of the hour as these are vital to manage our country’s growing electricity demands. The main driver for the adoption of smart grid technologies in India is energy access, reduction in T&D losses, which at 23.65 per cent is one of the highest in the world, and the expanding use of distributed energy systems.

Gaining Momentum India is aggressively pursuing the adoption of renewable energy. Grid-connected distributed renewable energy projects have the potential to propel the adoption of renewable energy resources amongst the consumers. One of the most recent incentives introduced by over 20 state governments to promote grid-connected solar projects is Net Metering.

Net metering is a billing mechanism that allows a grid-connected PV solar system to utilise electricity generated by the system in-house, and export the excess power into the grid. Excess electricity generated in a single billing period may be rolled over to the next billing cycle of the consumer and be utilised to offset electricity from the grid. Since distributed solar levelised cost of energy (LCoE) for industrial solar installations is `Rs. 7.5/kWh, solar energy is already cheaper than grid-supplied power for commercial and industrial (C&I) consumers in most of the states.

Economical Power The combination of net metering and utilisation of smart technologies like smart meters can help a customer economically manage their energy needs as well as promote grid stability. Smart grid

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attributes like advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), demand response and power quality management systems can prove valuable in the success and proper implementation of programmes like net metering.

Smart meters, which can monitor and record a consumer’s hourly consumption, may further aid the net metering cause of lowering electricity bills. Smart meters with such features will enable the utilities to set pricing based on timeof-day usage, rewarding customers who shift the electricity use to off-peak hours.

Also, by monitoring daily data, customers can better understand their daily load profiles and manage their demands, shifting their loads to non-peak hours. This will not only reduce their electricity bills but also ease demand on the grid.

One of the challenges faced by renewable energy sources is their intermittent nature and unpredictability. For example, the amount of electricity generated by a solar PV system during a hot summer afternoon is higher than the electricity generated by the same system on a cloudy day or a winter afternoon. However,

by focusing on key smart technologies, this intermittency can be overcome.

A major concern for utilities is the quality of electricity being injected into the grid by a distributed generator. With greater integration of distributed generation at the tail-end of the grid, the concerns are valid about the safety and stability of the grid. Smart grid features, like power quality management system, address these events and facilitate efficient and reliable operation of the power system. Lesser grid failures will also improve customer satisfaction.

Reliable Grids Needed Even though smart technologies like smart meters can revolutionise the way we utilise electricity from the grid, certain issues persist.

Cost of smart meters is high and affordability becomes an issue. Also, privacy and security of consumer’s data needs to be addressed.

Provisions and rules for privacy and security should be in place. Development of a reliable, secure and resilient grid will enable utilisation of renewable energy resources, easing the use of fossil fuels, like coal, for energy generation.

Dhiraj Wali

Smart Technology

IT Integration Makes City Smart It is impossible to think of a Smart City without innovative technology solutions; a modern-day city can become smart only through technology integration and IT-enabled delivery of information and services, insists Dhiraj Wali, Vice President, Bosch Engineering & Business Solutions, in an interview with Manish Arora of Elets News Network (ENN)

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hat challenges do you see in the implementation of ‘Digital India’ and ‘100 Smart Cities’ projects at the ground level?

Apart from ‘Digital India’ and ‘100 Smart Cities’ project, the government has also launched ‘Make in India’ and ‘Skill Development’ missions.

All these initiatives simultaneously impact the country at systemic level to bring about sustainable growth and development. In addition, there is also the AMRUT scheme, earlier known as JnNURM, for the development of 500 cities and towns. All these projects have their specific strategic relevance, scope and action plan.

On July 10, 2014, the government had announced the vision of developing ‘100 Smart Cities’ as satellite towns of larger cities and by modernising the existing mid-sized cities.

The project was approved by the Cabinet on April 29, 2015, along with the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) project, and launched on June 24, 2015. Of the 100 smart cities, 75 will be located in 12 states. Each selected city would get `100 crore per year for the next five years.

The AMRUT project is meant for 500 towns and cities with more than one lakh population.

The government has earmarked central outlay of `48,000 crore for the proposed 100 smart cities and `50,000 crores for the 500 towns and cities.

An SPV is planned to be launched for each city with the responsibility to implement the smart city project.

What is the role of technology in a Smart City?

It’s almost impossible to think of a present-day

areas, the said problem would automatically get addressed.

One major issue in big cities in India is transportation. How do you see this being tackled in cities like Delhi and Bangalore?

life without innovative technology solutions, whether it’s the use of smart phones and mobile applications, digital payments, Aadhaar-based digital identification, Internet, intelligent transportation and distribution, and advanced geographical information systems, to name a few. A well-developed and smart city has to be technologically integrated and enabled by IT.

Since technology is at the core of Smart Cities, how will it accommodate those who are technologically illiterate?

One of the guiding principles of establishing Smart Cities is to include all citizens regardless of their level of education, skills or income levels.

Technology, in fact, should make it simple and easy; both for the authorities to reach out to each and every citizen and vice-versa. Also, since the cities are expected to follow ‘retrofit’ approach by identifying select areas for transforming as smart

Deployment of smart technology solutions is the key to curb traffic snarls. However, there is no single solution that will fit all cities. The current situation, existing infrastructure / assets will have to be kept in mind while planning various ‘technology interventions’ to streamline or improve the transportation and traffic needs of cities.

Apart from road and Metro rail infrastructure, the public transport system has to be reliable, safe, comfortable and affordable. Smart technology solutions like ‘Integrated Transportation Solution’ and ‘Traffic Management Solutions’ can significantly improve the overall public transportation scenario.

Where do you see the Smart Cities initiative in the next five years?

The project of Smart Cities is gigantic and needs very good understanding and planning to implement it. As per indications, the Smart Cities will mostly adopt ‘retrofit’ approach. Next practical option would be ‘re-development’ approach. Green Field option may be applied only in case of a few cities. Based on ‘retrofit’ and ‘redevelopment’ approach, the rest of the city can be covered in a planned manner in phases. Under retrofit and redevelopment approach, the progress would be phase-wise and good results can be achieved in a period of five to ten years.

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SMART TECHNOLOGY

PURUSHOTTAM KAUSHIK

Converting Necessity into Opportunity A key participant in central government’s ambitious Smart City project, Cisco is helping implement solutions in the Indian context. Purushottam Kaushik, Managing Director, Cisco Systems India, in an interview with Dr Ravi Gupta, Editor-in-Chief, eGov magazine, highlights the role Cisco can play in both making and running of Smart Cities

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ell us about the Smart City strategy of Cisco.

Cisco is engaged at various levels considering the programmes that the government has announced. The movement from villages towards the cities has been to the extent of nearly 70 per cent in search of a better life.

However, the cities have not been able to fulfil all the expectations of the people moving to the large metros with regard to the quality of life or maybe in te rms of security, better housing, better transport, better sanitation, etc.

Cisco has the experience of working across 25 large cities and offering technology-related solutions. There are 47 solutions which we have worked in - parking, lighting, sanitation, water, roads, safety, security, etc. So, we have technology-led solutions. The approach of Cisco with the government is of devising a policy and a vision for the larger view. So, it’s basically helping them to build a bigger picture and then looking at solutions which can be implemented in India.

Basically, we are working with the Central Government, cities, municipal corporations and also the state governments. One important part is the safe city part, which is basically obligation of the Government. Also, we have already been working with teams in Lucknow, Navi Mumbai and Mumbai to this end.

How do you think that IT integration can help in making safe cities and what role does Cisco envisage for itself in the backdrop of announcement of ‘100 Smart Cities’ project?

If you look from the ICT-layer per-

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spective, the solution is kind of a three-layer solution. The first thing is the connectivity across the city. So, one needs to have a very strong or high availability of network because of the scalability and flexibility of IT. There has to be a fibre network with an IPenabled access.

Second part is the end-points, which can be of numerous types. Cameras are part of a safe city. Similarly, there can be a combination of cameras and sensors for traffic management, along with Wi-Fi access points. These end-points can be of various types where inputs will be gathered to provide output to customers.

The third part is the control layer where all the information travelled is collected from the end-points and then carried through the network to data centre. For instance, there are parking solutions. In a crowded market, there could be three parking

PURUSHOTTAM KAUSHIK

SMART TECHNOLOGY

some solutions which can be introduced with some potential revenue there. However, people will come and invest only when things are clear.

There’s apparently lack of allotment of funds for states or municipal corporations to work for Smart Cities. In this scenario, how companies like yours are handling this issue while associating with civic bodies?

Cisco has the experience of working across 25 large cities and offering the technology-related solutions. There are 47 solutions which we have worked in - parking, lighting, sanitation, water, roads, safety, security, etc lots. Now, if one knows exactly that this is the parking slot available, one would straight away go there. It helps businesses, citizens and even the government, as they don’t want to have traffic congestion. So, it’s a solution which solves problems at each layer – government and businesses, and creates new business opportunities for the people and the citizens.

Then, there are transport solutions, water distribution, power and waste disposal solutions. The data thus gathered can be used by so many agencies across the city.

How do you see the readiness of the urban bodies to adopt these kinds of solutions?

We see huge openness to adopt many of these solutions and it is more about demonstrating it actually than just talking about it. But we are saying that there are few tools, through which services can be delivered much faster at a much cheaper rate with a wider impact. Some of these solutions, which are technology-led, can be implemented in a phased manner and that’s what Cisco is right now working for. That’s the first step of an integrated view of the city and identifying

There are two-three ways of looking at it. One is that whether government has some money for Smart City now; but there are various existing programmes within a city which, if combined, can create enough pool for developing a Smart City. Today, there may be a power project going on for enabling the hanging cables by taking those underground. Similarly, there could be a project for water distribution. There could be scenario where the departments concerned work in isolation. But, looked at in a holistic manner, there is a connectivity layer for every project.

The government has said they will be making available around Rs 100 crore per city and then it will further be enhanced by the state government and the private players. At least, this is a good degree to move ahead.

Third is that an investor comes in and looks at the revenue model and only then invests. But there are returns that come after years of investment, which also needs to be looked into.

What is your take on the number of cities adopting ICT for their growth and well-being?

In every state, we are looking at seven to 10 cities to be upgraded, because whatever we say, only 33 per cent people living in the cities are predicted to contribute over 70 per cent of the GDP. So, that’s where the focus will be; around 100-150 cities will be seeing a lot of action happening on the ground.

But, a section of the media says that it’s not happening...one year has passed and nothing has rolled out till now?

Ultimately, Smart City is the name of some programmes, which are being run under JnNURM and other similar schemes. It has a huge momentum and has generated hope and excitement among the people to have a better quality of life. Also, there are business opportunities and that’s where the government is focused.

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TECH KNOWHOW

KOH LIN JI

Cementing Ties with Smart Cities As India readies to develop 100 Smart Cities, Singapore companies see a huge business opportunity for themselves, says Koh Lin Ji, Group Director of the state-run Building and Construction Authority (BCA) of Singapore, in conversation with Prathiba Raju of Elets News Network (ENN)

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ow do you view India’s 100 Smart Cities project?

Singapore is in the 50th year of bilateral relationship with India. With the 100 Smart Cities project, we get wide business opportunities and can work with India even more closely. We get both the nations’ citizens to work with each other on different projects. Singapore sees this as a robust business opportunity, as varied firms in clean energy, construction have the expertise in building Smart Cities. Since the announcement of 100 Smart Cities and 500 cities under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) plans, Singapore companies see a bigger business space. We are looking forward to work in many projects. It is an opportunity to work on macro level to resolve urban problem and combat climate change. For the past 50 years, Singapore has accumulated sufficient amount of expertise in sustainable urban solution where we can plan, build and maintain well to make a city liveable and are keen to associate with the Indian projects.

What are the key points which India has to concentrate on during the planning of Smart Cities?

Long-term planning is a key factor in creation of a Smart City. Second comes the data, as detailed planning could happen only when we have proper data. There is a need to collect sufficient real time data through ICT tools. With real time data, the planners could create various models, which can foresee if there is a climate change and its impacts. We could also have preventive measures. Smart Cities planning needs smart people, who can appreciate and solve problems. Most important factor is proper and transparent

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governance, without which you cannot take things forward.

In India, we have a three-tier government system where the Centre has engaged the state and Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in Smart City competition. Do you think it’s a correct approach?

There is no right or wrong approach. In India, the three tiers of central government, state government and ULBs will need a proper coordination. The primary focus should be a pragmatic approach with longer view. A collective approach is needed and one can’t be a purist and jump to a decision immediately. As far as Smart Cities is concerned, the roadmap by the Central Government is clear, but it might take time, maybe in five years or 25 years, eventually it will be there. Cities can’t be built overnight. For example, Singapore had taken a lot of time to evolve as a Smart City and we want to earn the status of a smart nation. We had every detail on the paper and we worked accordingly with a robust planning.

How is BCA engaged with 100 Smart Cities initiative?

We want to collaborate with the Smart City project and make sustainable environment in India by 2025. BCA is a platform for stakeholders from both public and private sectors in Singapore and Asia Pacific. At present, Singapore’s Subarana Jurong are working out to develop and bring in a new green smart capital, Amaravati (Andhra Pradesh). It will be a new smart green capital. Suvarna Jurong has come out with concept plan for 7,325 sq.kms.

Early this month, a detailed plan for 120 kms has been submitted to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu. The Singapore Government is working to develop the core city of Amaravati. It is currently at the planning level. When it comes to actual implementation, BCA will ensure the buildings constructed are smart and green. Apart from this, the 100 Smart Cities and 500 Amrut cities have mammoth business opportunities and we are working with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) as weII.

YOGESH DUTTA

SAFE CITIES

Surveillance Device

Industry on a High The security and surveillance industry is set to benefit immensely from the Government’s ambitious Smart Cities programme. Yogesh Dutta, Chief Operation Officer, CP PLUS, in conversation with Nirmal Anshu Ranjan of Elets News Network (ENN), talks about how they are going to combine quality and affordability

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ith rapid urbanisation, the threat perception in the cities has also gone up substantially. In this scenario, surveillance in cities becomes a huge factor.

What is your take?

It’s true that with the increase in population and rising diversity in demography, surveillance mechanisms in cities need to be tightened.

Moreover, people feel that as taxpayers, they have a right to be secure. Even for a community/ city to prosper, proper security remains a precondition.

Besides, following various terror and disruptive activities taking place across the country in the recent times, there has been a substantial increase in the level of awareness among the people, leading to demand for putting in place proper security measures — be it a city, state or country.

What products and services does CP PLUS offer?

CP PLUS offers services to small home/office on a turnkey basis, to the aviation sector, to ports or for surveillance at public places. So, we have the largest range catering to different applications of products and solutions, in which we have got multiple categories of good cameras with different resolutions, to suit specific requirements. Also, we have devices, like recorders, as part of surveillance solutions.

Do you see a role for yourself in the recently initiated ‘100 Smart Cities’ programme?

A Smart City is smart only if it’s safe and secure.

So, we are looking upon the government’s programme as a huge opportunity for the security and surveillance devices industry.

Cameras will have to be installed in every nook and corner of such cities, which throws up unprecedented business prospects for us. We are eagerly looking forward to it.

Who are your major clients that you cater to the most?

The major sectors that we cater to include Corporate and Retail, apart from the government sector.

At present, we are trying to focus most on the Retail sector.

In addition, we are pitching Communication sector, too.

How do you find CP PLUS placed in comparison to others in the surveillance solutions market?

India is a market of the masses and we are focused towards it.

If you are offering something to people at an affordable rate,

people will lap it up. Be it any brand, people would look for good quality products at an affordable price...that’s the consumer psyche, more so in India. People have grown up into smart buyers today. It’s the optimisation of the value of money spent that people are most concerned about, and we are trying to offer quality at most reasonable prices.

Also, unlike in the past, even tier-II cities have grown security conscious: places like Bijnaur and Gajraula can also be seen having surveillance cameras at crucial points. Then, cameras are also being installed in parking lots and lifts for safety purposes.

What is the strategy for the growth of the company in the coming years?

The most important thing for the growth of an organisation is to align its products with the customers’ requirements. So, we constantly look out for ways to improvise on the utility quotient of our products, to make the most of the available opportunities. We are trying to place ourselves in the market in a way so as to become a company with the most-sought-after products...a brand name that people would not look beyond.

How would you differentiate between a high-definition camera and a commonly opted for one?

People generally have a perception that a highdefinition camera coming with a high price tag offers more security than a normal camera. But, we are here to break that myth: high-definition cameras can be affordable, too. We have some high-definition cameras starting with as low price as `2,000. We would like not just to have customers, but also to make them informed customers.

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SMART DESIGNING

PRADEEP NAIR

A Window of Opportunities Autodesk Inc, one of the major design software making players, sees an array of opportunities in the 100 Smart Cities initiative.

Pradeep Nair, Managing Director, Autodesk (India), in conversation with Prathiba Raju of Elets News Network (ENN) talks about the scope of the project

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hat is your take on the 100 Smart Cities project?

Don’t be a purist about what Smart Cities would mean, don’t expect that in the next five years Ajmer would turn into Singapore.

The government is formulating policies and it provides industry players a framework and intent to make our cities look smart. It is a good opportunity for industries and government to evolve. This is what is necessary and interesting to us. Such initiatives by the governments give the industry confidence to explore opportunities, as we believe that such projects would remain for a longer run. The government is clear in their policy formation and it’s up to the industry to respond. The results come when we execute. A real transformation will take time. It is not an easy task, we have multilayered governments, funding challenges and skill challenges. But there is a policy framework, so it’s now time for the industries’ participation.

One firm or company probably cannot

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give all the solutions; we need partnerships, consortiums coming up.

What are the challenges and opportunities ULBs face in 100 Smart Cities initiative?

It is both a challenge and an opportunity for ULBs. With the 100 Smart Cities project, a lot of PPPs will be done in various civic projects. Lot of IT professionals and firms like Wipro, TCS are bringing in unique technologies to address civic issues like sewage treatment, smart water metering, etc. There is significant work happening, especially the citizen services are available online.

State governments and ULBs across the country are doing a bunch of things. Smart Cities fund of one lakh crore by the Central Government provides impetus for such initiatives. Many mobile apps have come in and there is data available which needs to be harnessed.

What are the challenges in building Smart Cities?

We have to focus on how we can enable this initiative instead of talking about what

Smart Cities is all about. Focus should be on how we implement it. For example, Autodesk India tried to put up routers for free Wi-Fi across Varanasi, but the monkeys carried these away, and these are the Indian challenges, which a country like Singapore doesn’t face. We have to think and plan as challenges vary.

How different and useful is the Autodesk 3D plan in 100 Smart Cities initiative?

If you look at building process, it is a core process of a city, but at the same time it’s simple as well. In India, builders submit the drawings and then the government brings proposal and various tiers of government get a fat bunch of file. But in Singapore, it started as a process in 1997, where they made the building process simple. They started with 2D, and three years back they wanted a 3D file instead of 2D, as in 2D drawings, there is no sense of space.

Autodesk provides a model, which is efficient enough and the model shows the whole neighbourhood and not just a building. It’s a single-window approach for a builder and a developer. In seven days, they get comments from various departments. There is definite interest in many cities to bring in such 3D modelling.

SMART TECHNOLOGY

NILESH GORADIA

NILESH GORADIA

SMART TECHNOLOGY

Tech Tools for Efficient Services As cities go gung-ho about the Smart Cities initiative, the role of technology enablers becomes vital to bridge the gap between the planners and the executing agencies.

Nilesh Goradia, Head, Workspace Services & Government Business, India Subcontinent, Citrix, in conversation with Elets News Network (ENN)

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hat are the initiatives Citrix as a technology enabler has to offer to the government and other agencies?

Citrix has partnered with several government agencies and entities and involved in transformative projects to serve the citizens better. For example, online booking service of the railways where the government wanted to do certain transactions per minute, so that booking a ticket becomes faster and people don’t have to wait. We participated in the initiative and one

of our solutions, Citrix Netscaler appliance, enhanced the performance of the web-based applications by almost 80-90 per cent, reducing the amount of infrastructure requirement in the data centre, which ensured 50 per cent lesser resources. And the delivery time of that particular app to the end user would be enhanced by 50-60 per cent. So, here technology became an enabler, and the citizens started getting better services.

Is adequate training provided to the nodal agencies accessing the application? What are the basic challenges?

We give them adequate training. However, we cannot expect a person to excel in the limited training period on how to operate that application. Citrix gives them time to get familiar on the applications. There are certain states where the network connectivity is very poor.

The Government is taking initiatives to increase network availability in the country. We supplement their efforts by offering applications like Zenapp in the areas with limited network access. We generate cloud-based solutions, or remote training through ‘My Training’ or webinars, too.

What solutions can Citrix offer on cyber security?

It is very important to be secure against attacks while delivering services on Internet. There are attacks when somebody tries to inject a query by being an unauthorised user and extracts information. There are also denial-of-service attacks, where they hit the application with so many requests that the application server is not able to handle it and goes down. The Government’s focus is a lot on cyber security; there are cyber security cells, which work with the crime department. We have a firewall

solution, which allows you to ward off any kind of attacks on the application. So, apart from enhancing, we can protect web application also.

What can you share about enabling the cloud and data centre efficiency?

Citrix supports an open source server, which is known as Zen server based on an open source technology. It is very cost-efficient, as it’s based on open source technology, and reduces power load in data centre. So, many government agencies prefer it. We also have a technology called ‘cloud platform’, which can allow to build private clouds. The government can allow building its own kind of cloud with one of the state governments and use that on our technology. We look into efficient delivery service to any agency from a G2C perspective.

Does Citrix focus on healthcare?

Healthcare is the number two sector worldwide and we have partnered with the premium companies. Citrix offers a solution where they can access ‘clinical history’ from any device.

For example, somebody who is reading the patient’s history can update it and the attending doctor can retrieve it immediately. We have also provided technological solutions to local practioners for database of their patients.

What services are you offering to the banking sector?

The number one sector worldwide is banking and 90 per cent of the Internet banking systems in India run on Citrix technology. Private sector banks like HDFC, ICICI, IndusInd, and PSBs like SBI, among others, use it. We also help in financial inclusion and work with co-operative banks. We have done one project with the largest one of the large co-op bank.

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21-22 August 2015, Hotel Le Meridian, New Delhi

Special Interview

Upender Jit Singh

IT Parks to play Game Changer in West Bengal With numerous IT initiatives being taken across the country to make India digital, Webel is planning to develop several Technology Parks in the State of West Bengal. Managing Director of the State Government undertaking, Upender Jit Singh, in conversation with Dr Ravi Gupta, Editor-in-Chief, eGov magazine, talks about how these parks will prove to be a huge factor in the digital progress of West Bengal, in particular, and the country, in general.

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hat role does the West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Ltd (Webel) play in the government sector?

Webel is the nodal agency for promotion of IT and electronics in the State. We are promoting electronics manufacturing through our Electronics Manufacturing Clusters (EMCs).

We have two large EMCs in Naihati and Falta, spread over 70 acre and 50 acre plots, respectively.

These are large clusters meant to promote electronics.

Investors, who want to start their manufacturing facility, can easily come and start their units here. It’s a plug and play. In addition to this, we also have software technology parks on similar lines at most of the district. We will have eight IT Parks ready.

Apart from that, we have hardware technology parks,

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where we are planning to create hardware blocks. Further, there are various complex projects that we have undertaken. The State Wide Area Network Project has been

undertaken and implemented by us. The network is now seven-eight years old, and we will be replacing the obsolete projects gradually.

Also, the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) will be taken up to the district and block levels. This is being rolled out as part of the ‘Digital India’ initiative. We also have the State Data Centre, where we have about 50+ applications running for various departments, and the State Wide Area Network (SWAN) project.

We also offer ISP services to our customers and work on large campus LAN/ WAN projects on account of our expertise in SWAN. We also have a full-fledged software development team. Another added advantage is that we offer training courses, too.

What other initiatives has Webel taken up?

We have a division called Medical Equipment Maintenance Centre (MEMC), through which we maintain and provide solutions for medical equipment. We have Webel Electronics Communication Limited, along with other nine subsidiary companies.

We are planning to start a Cyber Security Network Audit division. There are lots of departments approaching us following t h e i r concern

Upender Jit Singh

over vulnerability of their websites and other networks. So, we are planning to resolve such issues and come out with this initiative soon.

How do you manage financial resources for working on the projects?

Webel being a state nodal agency gets funding from state and centre for implementing e-gov & MMP projects. We are a large company with over 400 employees. Earlier, we had a number of factories, where we used to manufacture TV, etc. It was about 14 years back; today, we are a much diversified group covering various Information Technology offerings.

Do you take up projects from outside Bengal also?

Yes, we do. In fact, a lot of business comes from outside West Bengal. For example, we have picked up projects from the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC). Similarly, we have done the Aadhar card project for 11 states. We have also been working in the Northeast and in Bangalore, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

What is your vision for Webel?

It’s a diverse organisation and we would like to build up expertise and skills in technologies in

Special Interview

We are planning to start a Cyber Security Network Audit division. A lot of departments are approaching us following their concern over vulnerability of their websites and other networks.

So, we are planning to resolve these kinds of issues and come out with this initiative soon areas where customers would require services in the coming times. We would develop skills on Big Data Intelligence as well as Network Audit. In addition to this, we would also like to participate in projects like developing smart cities. The Government has already identified 100 high-tech cities.

There will be projects with multiple building blocks, with overall umbrella being smart cities. For each of these small blocks, we will build up solutions and expertise areas and then participate. We plan to develop skill solutions. There are so many things coming up and we would like to equip ourselves with new skills to avail of the upcoming opportunities in the market.

Where do you expect most major projects to come from?

As the Indian economy grows, the government be it the state or the centre, is going to be a large investor in the country. They are going to invest very heavily into technology as well as infrastructure development in the country. Lot of investments are happening in the highways and ports development. Even the Railways have earmarked one lakh crore rupees budget for upgradation. So, a lot of investments are being made by the government departments. I have never witnessed this kind of investment in the past. This is the right time for a company like ours to look at large projects and initiatives, and to deliver our skills to the government.

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ESDM

Dr Ajay Kumar

Electronics Manufacturing High on Digital India Wave The country has to have an effective manufacturing mechanism to meet the demands of Digital India programme, says Dr Ajay Kumar, Joint Secretary, DeitY, Ministry of Communication & IT, Government of India, in an interaction with Souvik Goswami of Elets News Network (ENN)

T

he Government of India has launched the ambitious ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’ programmes.

How it is going to help the Electronic System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM)?

Electronic System Design and Manufacturing is one of the main pillars for both the ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’ programmes. At present, demand for electronics goods in the country is more than 100 million dollars. It is expected to rise to 400 billion dollars by 2022. This kind of demand cannot be met through imports. And, with the ‘Digital India’ programme on a roll, the demand is going to increase further. We have to have an effective manufacturing mechanism in the country to meet the demands of the programme.

What are the policies in place to encourage ESDM sector in India?

There are a series of policies to encourage ESDM sector in India. This sector was ignored earlier. The main reason behind it was the zero-duty regime under the Information Technology Agreement and Indian companies could not compete globally for various other reasons as well. Now, we have tried to address it from different angles. We have tried to ensure that the ecosystem for manufacturing and human resource availability improves.

Also, we have tried to create an innovation ecosystem and preference is given to domestic manufacturers.

You said that a favorable ecosystem is being created. Can you throw some light on that?

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We have tried to give it overall 360-degree coverage. We have given subsidy of 25 per cent on manufacturing in India to improve the ESDM ecosystem. We have come out with the schemes of electronic manufacturing cluster for the betterment of infrastructure.

Two semiconductor fabrication plants have been approved, which will provide the chips required for manufacturing.

Please elaborate on steps to encourage innovations.

The Electronics Development Fund (EDF) has been approved by the Government of India. It is really important to encourage innovations.

It is a mother fund and it will support daughter funds. This daughter funds will be privately owned and professionally managed and they will provide risk capital for creating new technologies. The EDF will have minority share in these daughter funds. This will create a whole new ecosystem of more venture fund capital for innovation in this sector.

Three incubators have been set up in Delhi, Kochi and Patna. The Delhi incubator has been set up jointly by the Delhi University, STPI & IESA; Kochi incubator is set by StartUp Village & IITM Kerala; and Patna incubator has been set up by IIT Patna. This will again help in forming new start ups in this area.

Dr Ajay Kumar

In the area of medical electronics, we have instituted a programme where we fund research by industry to develop new medical electronic products. This is being implemented through BIRAC. Keeping in mind the scope of joint collaborations with industry in other countries, we now have schemes to fund that kind of research and technology development.

This is being implemented by GITA - Global Innovation & Technology Alliance.

Our main aim of encouraging innovations is to ensure that it takes place within the industry itself and not only in the government labs. All these schemes are industry-oriented.

What steps are being taken to ensure human resource development?

Three major schemes are in place. One is at the vocational level. We have created schemes for developing skills at the shop floor level.

The Government of India provides 75 per cent assistance for any skill development for general candidates and 100 per cent for economically weaker section. Four lakh people can be trained and these people will be trained

ESDM

ESDM is one of the main pillars for both ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’ programmes. At present, demand for electronics goods in the country is more than 100 million dollars, which is expected to rise to 400 billion dollars by 2022. This kind of demand cannot be met through imports specific to the industry requirements and the course will be approved by the industry. Any training centre, which is recognised by the Sector Skill Council, will be allowed to provide this kind of training.

There is scheme for PhD level also. We aim to scale up the number of PhDs up to 3,000 in the next five years. In last two years, we have been able to produce 1,114 PhDs. The challenge lies in the infrastructure development of various institutes to provide PhDs in this segment.

We are also setting up seven regional ICT academies. Hopefully, by next year, these

institutes will become operational.

Where do you see India’s future in respect to the global digital landscape?

India is the biggest market. World markets are getting saturated. We have technology-savvy young population, and world is looking at us with hope and enthusiasm for all these reasons. There were challenges in the ESDM sector as well in India. However, now the level of optimism is really bright as people can see opportunity with us.

August 2015 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

43

TECHCONNECT

MUKTESH K PARDESHI

Technology Gives

Passport Seva a Facelift Technical upgradation in Passport Seva has made it more popular among the citizens, as they find the process user-friendly, simple, efficient and transparent, says Muktesh K Pardeshi, Joint Secretary (PSP) and CPO, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, while sharing insights with Gautam Debroy of Elets News Network (ENN) about the initiative and its way forward

W

hat latest IT gadgets have you incorporated to develop the process of delivering passport to the citizens?

Under the Passport Seva process, lots of technology interventions have been done to ease the passport issuance system. It is one of the largest mission mode projects under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). The project has been implemented by the Ministry of External

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Affairs (MEA) in Public Private Partnership (PPP) in association with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

Apart from technology improvements, a lot of focus has been given on business process reengineering, citizen orientation service, training and change management of our staff and also integration with other stake holders. So, a lot of work has already been done.

Currently, we are working on integration of Passport Seva with other data bases and systems in the country, such as Aadhaar, Crime and Criminal Tracking Network &

Systems (CCTNS) and National Population Register. Over the next few months, linking will take place, which would make passport issuance a seamless exercise for the Government.

Apart from creating a countrywide networked environment for Government staff, it would integrate with the State Police for physical verification of applicant’s credentials and with India Post for delivery of passports. As a whole, Passport Seva enables simple, efficient and transparent processes for delivery of passport and related services.

MUKTESH K PARDESHI

TECHCONNECT

How do you use Aadhaar in your system?

The Ministry of External Affairs has successfully integrated Passport Data Validation with Aadhaar database. As part of Aadhaar integration, applicants applying for passport-related services would be encouraged to provide Aadhaar number as part of their online application registration process. Passport application form has a provision to capture Aadhaar number during online registration process. Passport Seva system has now been enabled to validate Aadhaar number and fingerprints of the applicants with the Aadhaar database.

The Ministry has successfully integrated Passport Seva with Aadhaar system and the pilot project is running at seven locations since April-May 2015. Countrywide roll out of Aadhaar integration is expected in the next two-three months.

northeastern states, but the situation has changed now.

We have Passport Seva Kendras (PSK) in almost all the northeastern states, while in a

We are working on integration of Passport Seva with other data bases and systems in the country, such as Aadhaar, CCTNS and National Population Register. Linking will make passport issuance a seamless exercise for the Government What strategies have you adopted to those areas, which are not yet IT enabled?

In the earlier system, there were several states and union territories, which were not part of the institutional coverage. For instance, in the Northeast, we had only one passport office in Guwahati, which used to look into the passport issuance of the other

few states like Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Tripura, it is likely to be set up in the next few months. We have PSKs already functional in Mizoram, Shillong (Meghalaya) and Sikkim.

Similarly, we have work going on in Puducherry. We have recently set up extension outfit in Daman & Diu. The idea of the Government is to cover all states and union territories under passport issuance system, connected to PSKs.

Wherever we are not able to come up with PSKs, we are using other options, like the Passport Seva Cab. It’s a mobile cab, where our people go with equipment and organise camps with the help of district administrations and collect applications over the weekend. This initiative has helped us reach several remote areas of the country. Since last October, we have already done more than 100 such camps across India.

Tell us the significant impact of the PSK project?

The project has provided jobs close to 2500 associates, mainly from small towns, and it has improved their family earnings and social standing. The project has also hired close to 45 per cent women including 11 per cent in leadership roles. Various energy saving initiatives at the Data Centre have helped in annual reduction of 70,000 kg of the project’s carbon footprint.

Is the department using cloud technology?

We have not started to use cloud technology in passport work as of now, but we are examining its possibilities in the framework of integrating embassies and consulates with the Indian passport issuance system. There is system available in the data base of the embassies, but they are still working in the legacy system. So, now there is a proposal to link all embassies abroad, 180 in numbers, with the Passport Seva system on real time basis. In order to connect these embassies with the Passport Seva system, several proposals have been discussed, and one of the proposals is the use of cloud technology.

August 2015 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

45

EDUCATION

A

SANJAY BANSAL

s a corporate house, how do you relate yourself with the ‘100 Smart Cities’ project?

The ‘100 Smart Cities’ project is an absolute must for our country and its economy. As India is going to have largest number of urban dwellers in the next few years, the government has decided to create Smart Cities with mechanisms to handle rising load on the urban resources. Smart City needs smart traffic, smart power, smart roads and smart technologies.

Business Octane provides smart collaboration and smart learning. The products Immersive Video Collaboration and Immersive Video Collaboration Learning can simultaneously connect people at 33 locations. Our services would come handy for the decision makers in implementing the Smart City project, both at the Centre and in the states. Business Octane can add wings to the process of project execution.

Facilitating Smart Teaching Sophisticated and configured video interactions offered by Business Octane for smart education could be a key element in Smart Cities, says Sanjay Bansal, Chairman and Managing Director, Business Octane, in an interview with Arpit Gupta of Elets News Network (ENN) on Internet as well as on private networks. The government would be able to do things faster and get accelerated results through our services.

Which all sectors does the company cater to and where do you have the largest presence?

Business Octane has more than 1,000 enterprise customers for our various solutions, representing the who’s who of corporate India, PSUs and global MNCs. We are majorly catering to Governance, Health, Education, Banking & Finance, industries as well as the Government. Our solutions are 10 times effective than ordinary video teleconferences.

This leads to faster delivery of education services across the country.

The Smart Cities project is not confined to just basic amenities, but it is also about smart education and healthcare. Do you see a role for yourself there?

Smart Cities should ideally have infrastructure for smart education. We have designed specialised and sophisticated solutions for smart education where we can help the government achieve its goals. There is an acute shortage of good teachers and trainers in the country. Through our innovative technology, one faculty member can do the job of five teachers. All that is required is a dedicated infrastructure to use this technology. As a result, the shortage of faculties in Smart Cities could be overcome. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi is determined to accomplish the project of ‘100 Smart Cities’ at the earliest, our solution will expedite the process.

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How difficult is it to guard information and infrastructure against cyber threats and how would Business Octane ensure security of its products and services?

The services and products of Business Octane are easy to use, highly aesthetic, completely flexible, upgradable and scalable for complete investment protection. Our products are safe and secure, as all calls are encrypted. These calls run

What is your strategy to expand your presence in the Indian market?

We cover entire India and have set up our Executive Experience Centers in Gurgaon, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad. We provide direct pre-sales and post-sales support from these seven locations and are soon coming up with a demo centre in Kolkata. Our key business philosophy is PDTC, i.e. Passionate Difference To Customers.

Curtain Raiser

Host Partner

lR;rk

20-22 August 2015, Bhopal

rk LoPN

Bhopal Municipal Corporation

‘Elets Smart City Conclave Bhopal 2015’ is being organised keeping in mind that the capital city of the State of Madhya Pradesh is in forefront for many years in making the city smart and intelligent in terms of developing urban infrastructure. As the Government of India has embarked on the journey of building Smart Cities across India and Bhopal is one of the cities eager to implement the Government of India’s ambitious project in true spirit, it is time to showcase what Bhopal can offer to be one of the Best Smart Cities in the Country.

Elets Smart City Conclave Bhopal 2015 will bring together government officials, technology providers, investors and experts across India to discuss and exchange ideas to make Bhopal a smarter, cleaner, sustainable city with world class infrastructure.

This conference will focus on the various aspects of a smart city including urban development, power, energy, transport, technology, green building, network & communication technology. Experts opine that if India builds new cities, or extends and develops existing ones, it needs new technology friendly city governance model that is ‘faster, better and cheaper’. Smart cities herald a new age where information technology coupled with smart waste management, sustainable water management, in addition to roads, buildings or bridges forms the core infrastructure to enable the government to provide more efficient services, maintain a low carbon footprint and create an entrepreneurial environment for its citizens. Elets Smart City Conclave Bhopal 2015 will cover all these aspects of building a smart city.

In the next four pages we talk about the initiatives undertaken by the Bhopal Municipal Corporation to transform the City of Lakes into a real Smart City. Read on...

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Curtain Raiser

Alok sharma

BMC At Work to Transform City At a time when Bhopal is being seen as one of the finest cities of the country, Mayor of Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) Alok Sharma is busy chalking out a strategy to get the city listed in the first 20 proposed Smart Cities. The Mayor and his team are contemplating to ensure toilet and water pipeline connections for each household in Bhopal

N

otwithstanding the fact that Bhopal is country’s one of the best cities in terms of infrastructure growth, one of the top priorities of BMC is to make the city a more clean, green and developed city. The State Government is thankful to the Union Government for choosing Bhopal—which is already recognised as a liveable city—for the proposed Smart Cities project.

The civic body, through its elected members, has decided to take opinions of local residents, such as senior citizens, NGOs, bar councils and chambers of commerce, among others, on the Smart City project to make Bhopal a real Smart City. The decision to consult residents has been taken, as they know Bhopal better than anybody else. The suggestions/ objections of the people on the guidelines for making Bhopal smart is of utmost importance and would be kept in mind

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while creating world-class infrastructure in the city. Public participation is the need of the hour. For instance, if residents of a certain ward generate 50 per cent fund for any project, BMC would pump in another 50 per cent to complete the project meant for public convenience.

At a time when the people are talking about creating smart cities, providing basic amenities to the citizens from the lowest strata should be kept in mind and that is what BMC is looking for. It is mulling to provide toilet and water connections to each household to make people’s lives better. Toilets would soon be built to completely stop the practice of open defecation. The Corporation’s prime focus is to make it to the list of first 20 Smart Cities, so as to give a thrust to Bhopal’s development process. BMC has a dedicated cell for Smart City to look after every issue related to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious project.

The BMC authorities have also identified

a few areas where Wi-Fi connectivity would be provided to Bhopalites, in line with promises made in the poll manifesto of the party in power - BJP. BMC has made a provision in the current budget of transforming certain clusters of Bhopal into Wi-Fi-enabled zones to provide internet connectivity to the residents. The other projects on which the Corporation is working include smart parking system, like tower parking, smart card, GIS survey, potable water ATMs and non-motorised transportation.

The Corporation is also encouraging people to use non-motorised transport, i.e. cycles, to keep the city clean and help in reducing the pollution. BMC is also developing cycle tracks for the riders. It is strengthening Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) corridors, so that people start using public transport efficiently. Many key colonies are being linked with BRTS and service lanes are being

alok sharma

developed to strengthen public transportation mode. BMC is trying to ensure that more and more people start commuting in city buses to reach their destinations. For this, more parking lots would be built across the city, so that people can park their vehicles at the nearest BRTS station or Metro station and catch buses/ Metro trains.

When it comes to materialising the Smart Cities project, we at BMC want to focus on the redevelopment and re-densification model of Bhopal. We want to choose an old area, which needs redevelopment and renovation to incorporate technology that makes it ‘smart’.

Under this, the government wants to build at least 50,000 affordable houses for urban poor, so that people do not have to sleep on footpaths.

There is a proposal to give lower floors of the housing projects to senior citizens, keeping in mind their comfort. The government is also promoting real estate developers to build sky scrapers.

Considering the difficulties faced by women in using unhygienic toilets, BMC is developing four ‘She Lounges’, which would

Curtain Raiser

The Bhopal Municipal Corporation is encouraging people to use non-motorised transport, i.e. cycles, to keep the city clean and help in reducing pollution. BMC is developing cycle tracks for the riders be equipped with all basic amenities, like hygienic toilets, Wi-Fi connectivity, ATMs, bio-incinerator to treat sanitary napkins, sofa and a novelty shop to cater to their needs. The service would be free of cost.

There is also a proposal of installing automatic timers and retrofitting energyefficient LED lights in the streets to save electricity. People face troubles whenever any organisation digs up the road to lay cables, water pipeline or sewerage. In order to fix this problem, BMC is coming up with utility duct policy to prevent such practices.

We also want to set up bio-methanation plants to generate methane gas from solid trash and restaurant wastes to reduce carbon footprints.

Notably,

Bhopal generates around 700 metric tonnes of solid waste on any given day.

If everything goes as planned, BMC would like to make a small stretch of the city a beautified and well developed cluster under the PPP mode on the lines of Gujarat’s Surat city. Facilities like, door-to-door garbage collection service, night sweeping and development of service lanes would be ensured. That apart, a mega food court would also be developed in Bhopal, as it lacks the one.

Many big cities do have food courts where people can go and rejoice every kind of food at nominal prices.

(As told to Vishwas Dass of Elets News Network)

August 2015 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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Curtain Raiser

civic initiatives

Cleaner, Greener Bhopal Ahead Despite a never-before surge in population and increase in the area under its jurisdiction, the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) has geared itself up to take on the challenge of providing quality civic service to the city-dwellers. Ensuring better cleanliness, developing civic amenities at par with metropolitan cities and keeping the city environment pollution-free are high on the BMC agenda, writes Vishwas Dass of Elets News Network (ENN)

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hopal — the City of Lakes, which has seen a tremendous growth in the recent past, experiences huge influx of people from both adjoining as well as far-flung areas. They come to the State Capital to pursue their dream of a better career and life.

The Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) has chalked out elaborate plans for the solid waste management (SWM) transfer stations, retrofitting of energy-efficient LED lights, conserving lakes, heritage zones and Smart Card system to bring all the essential services to a single platform for citizens’ convenience.

As part of its IT initiatives, BMC is toying with an idea of installing telecom signal receivers on the streetlight poles to strengthen telecom connectivity.

The city’s population has gone up from 19 lakh to 22 lakh, jurisdiction from 280 sq km to 460 sq km and the number of wards from 70 to 85 after the last year’s delimitation exercise.

The rise in population has increased the BMC responsibility to render better civic services to its citizens.

Incidentally, BMC takes pride in being India’s first and only urban local body to have fully implemented Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

The Corporation is also successfully operating the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS), having the longest corridor of 22 kms in the city, which has given a reliable and faster mode of transportation to the residents.

BRTS is aimed at encouraging people to use public transport, which is efficient and helps in keeping the environment clean and green.

In the area of lake conservation, BMC is the

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best equipped civic body across India, with its high-tech tools and devices like amphibious excavator, de-weeding machines and speed boats. BMC has 14 lakes under its limits and has an elaborate plan in place for the conservation of the same. It has a plan to replace its age-old ‘piyao’ (water dispensers) with potable water ATMs. The Corporation intends to provide

thirsty citizens free water to drink and crosssubsidise through with commercial marketing.

Given the kind of trouble women often face due to lack of clean toilets in big cities, the Bhopal Municipal Corporation has floated tenders to engage a private firm to develop four ‘She Lounges’ under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) mode. These lounges would be equipped

civic initiatives

with all basic amenities, like hygienic toilets, Wi-Fi connectivity, ATMs, bio incinerator to treat sanitary napkins, sofa and a novelty shop to cater to their needs. And, that is not all; the women would be able to use these facilities absolutely free of cost.

Keeping environmental concerns in mind, BMC has decided to replace conventional streetlight bulbs with energy-efficient LED lights to slash electricity bills and conserve environment. Currently, the city has around 45,000 streetlight poles being maintained by the Bhopal civic body.

It may be noted that Bhopal generates around 700 metric tonnes of solid waste every day, which consists of nearly 60 per cent of green waste.

BMC would also set up bio-methanation plants to generate methane gas from solid trash and restaurant wastes to reduce carbon footprints.

It can also be used for commercial purposes. If everything goes as planned, there would be one such plant at each garbage transfer station.

Efforts are on to convert water hyacinth (lake wastes) into manure. Once it goes fully operational, the civic body would not charge people to convert manure from hyacinth.

Besides, there is a plan to develop at least 10 garbage transfer stations in Bhopal.

Another ambitious project in the BMC pipeline is to provide Smart Cards to people having properties in their names for paying property tax to the civic body. It is a futuristic project that envisages bringing all the essential services like petro card, BRTS and library cards

Curtain Raiser

The Bhopal Municipal Corporation has chalked out elaborate plans for solid waste management (SWM) transfer stations, retrofitting of energy-efficient LED lights, conserving lakes, heritage zones and Smart Card system to bring all the essential services to a single platform for citizens’ convenience

to a single platform to make citizens’ lives easier.

According to the plan, people can use smart card for depositing any kind of tax, like water, electricity, land registry and property, among others, and even for travelling in buses and Metros. The card would have people’s personal database like Aadhaar, Elector’s Photo Identity Card (EPIC) and PAN. Talks are on to tie up with

banks for rolling out the Smart Card service.

People will find it of great help, as they would be able to avail multiple services through one card.

Given the determination of the Bhopal Municipal Corporation to improve the quality of civic services in the city, the days do not seem far off when the Lake City will be able to rival with the best cities across the country.

August 2015 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

51

EduTech

Puneet Kumar

Solutions for Seamless eGovernance in Education NYSA Communications offers turnkey solutions pan India, especially in the field of education, and helps educational institutions in developing and maintaining the education management solutions. Puneet Kumar, Chairman & Managing Director at NYSA Communications, in an interview with Seema Gupta of Elets News Network (ENN), speaks about how the company is helping education move to the next level

C

an you explicate the work done

by NYSA in the field of education and technology?

NYSA, a pioneer educational software development and consultation, majorly focuses into manpower development, turnkey solutions, assessment, training and certification and project-based consultancy. We have been successfully providing education solutions to more than 500 large and medium-sized clients around the globe. Our mission is to reform the education sector in developing countries by establishing effective ‘administrative and e-governance solutions’ through our automation Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions.

NYSA takes care of the entire academic administrative activities and provides services to more than two million customers annually. We have a target of $10 million of annual revenue and over 300 employees. Our web-based education management solution caters to both; large and small enterprises in real time. Needs of both large and small educational institutions are kept in mind while developing and maintaining the education management solution.

The ERP system combines all aspects of an educational institute including academics, admission, fee management, campus management, placement management which can be customisable according to clients’

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requirements. It integrates all the essential functionalities of an educational organisation through a single database system.

We provide end-to-end solutions right from designing and printing the papers, providing infrastructure, from the registration of candidate, to fee payment, seating arrangement, etc. Since most of the state government departments perform this task manually, there is always a big challenge of integrating the data in their information system.

NYSA, turnkey assessment and evaluation is preferred by various state governments.

What about the NYSA’s international presence?

NYSA has bagged few good international contracts. We have also been chosen by Uganda’s (Africa) education department. They wanted us to digitise the entire administration of education department and bring them into one banner and system. NYSA will help them with a holistic data analysis. Furthermore, Middle East is another region where the school and college infrastructure is not integrated and we are looking forward to take this opportunity and work in this field.

Explain the importance of Wi-Fi campus and networking.

By leveraging communication networks like WiFi, education institutions can improve the teaching and learning experience and boost staff and faculty productivity. Our campus Wi-Fi solutions provide a wireless canopy offering convenient, widely available, high-speed wireless network access to the campus community.

Puneet Kumar

What are the innovations and other verticals the company plans to expand into?

NYSA has developed an integrated university management system (UMS) which is webbased software for effective and efficient management of university. UMS develops and supports all the major universities and provide end-to-end management systems viz admission, administrative, academic, examination, HR, finance, library, transportation.

Most sought out solution is DigiCampus, which is a complete management software designed to automate a college’s diverse online, academic, communication and management operations. It develops and supports all the major campus-wide administrative and other management systems.

Our ‘Plan my School’ is a web-based school management system designed for better interaction between parents, students, teachers and management. This software effectively and efficiently handles all the requirements of the schools.

What are the new initiatives taken by you in the field of education in India?

NYSA e–systems solutions are a huge hit at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), one of the best institutions in our country and Maharishi

EduTech

We provide end-to-end solutions right from designing and printing the papers to providing infrastructure, from the registration of candidate to fee payment, seating arrangement, etc… NYSA is preferred by a number of state governments Dayanand University. Online solutions provided by NYSA helped JNU, which handles over 1,00,000 applications. Our solution was a blend of online and offline activities. With the implementation of our service, the students located outside the country were able to take admission without being physically present for fulfilling the minute formalities. Today, students from other countries don’t have to come to India to take admissions at JNU and can apply online.

Meanwhile, NYSA system helped enhance the rating of Maharishi Dayanand University, a higher education institution established in 1976 in Rohtak.

NYSA also has Cloud Vidya platform, which is mapped to cloud. The course is advanced enough for students to ask questions and have their queries sorted. Although the delivery of the programme is happening

in Lucknow, there are no geographical boundaries as such. Apart from this, we conducted a teachers eligibility test in Punjab.

The government was happy with the results.

NYSA has also stated a ‘Cloud Education Technology,’ but it is at a nascent stage.

Which government departments are you working with?

We are working with various examination bodies, state departments of school education — primary, secondary and higher secondary.

We are also in partnership with higher education departments in the universities that are working with technical boards as well. Our focus is predominantly into the government segments, recruitment boards, etc. NYSA is also helping the staff recruitment board of state governments.

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TECHNOLOGY

SHIBU PAUL

‘Array’ of Solutions for Today, Tomorrow From aiding both Central and State Governments by providing IT solutions, to providing a gamut of its products that offer complete banking solutions, Array Networks is surging ahead full steam. Shibu Paul, regional sales director, India in conversation with Priya Yadav

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ow is Array Networks different from other companies offering web-based solutions?

Array Networks is providing complete solutions to all the banks where multiple applications are required. If there is a Finacle deployment, all our products are relevant - Application Load Balancing, SLL Offloader, Link Load Balancing, etc. We are one among the few companies offering solutions in all segments. Earlier, most of the banking applications were client based.

Each local branch would keep its data. Today, what is happening is that the applications are centralised. Data has increased almost four to five times. So, we offer the required solutions.

What are the future ventures of Array Networks that excite you most?

We have very recently partnered with Juniper to provide solutions to banks and cater to their demands. Banking sector is one that needs our entire range of solutions for their smooth functioning. Our SSL Offloader is especially designed to cater to the huge traffic and is an essential strategy for assuring the performance of servers and business-critical applications.

Who are you catering to the most currently?

We are not state focused, we are vertical focused. Government definitely is our largest contributor; from business perspective, government holds a large chunk of our business. We are spread everywhere. Starting

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from UID, where we have been for four years, we are involved with all the treasuries – Punjab treasury, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka treasury. If you look at Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) projects, we are almost involved in 80 per cent of the projects in the country. In the finance industry, we have CBDT, ITBA, efiling and almost 100 per cent of the Inspector General of Revenue Services. We are one of the companies that have presence in the East. There is a huge potential in that region.

What business opportunities are you looking at in the 100 Smart Cities project?

A Smart City offers a lot of services online

- through applications, network, content.

You need a data centre and all the services.

But without Internet services, no services can be availed. The Government is of the opinion that most of the documents should be made available in digital format for which DigiLocker has been created. We see immense opportunities for offering web solutions in this sector.

What are the security concerns in this digital age?

Nothing is safe. All the security arrangements we see are more for psychological reasons.

Recently, there was an incident in the US where a car was hacked into and the engine started. It’s all about access. Now we are doing business over phone, or access information on any device, anywhere, anytime, and that makes it more critical. Array Networks is offering applications which will only allow you to access a particular application from a particular machine.

What are your focused projects as of now?

There are a lot of banks that are migrating from traditional banking to core banking applications. These applications could be Finacle or something else. They are upgrading – Corporation Bank was the first one to do so. Lot of cooperative banks are also implementing core banking.

The Government is very close to our projects. We will see the impact of a digital India happening over a couple of years from now.

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Event Report 27th June 2015, Dehradun

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Event Report 27th June 2015, Dehradun

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Help Goes Cloud-borne Pankaj Pandey, DM, Udhamsingh Nagar, Uttarakhand We have started a new cloud call centre—Jan Samvad Seva through which a person can lodge his/her grievance directly using mobile phone. All complaints directly goes to the DM to ensure better compliance. Just one phone call is required to register a complaint round-the-clock which is having 300 lines, so that there is no call jam or call waiting problem. Interestingly, the complainant can get the status of his/her complaint through Internet as well as SMS when it is updated at the call centre. Recently, we have connected Department of Revenue, Social Welfare, PWD, Disaster Management, Police, Irrigation and Food & Civil Supplies with the Centre. A grievance has to be addressed within 30 days and the status should be provided online to the applicants.

IT for a Better Tomorrow NS Negi, Senior Scientist, NIC Uttarakhand After the creation of Uttarakhand State, timely disbursement of salary was a big concern. The government had decided to open pay and account office in the treasury department. Earlier all DDOs were preparing and submitting the bills manually in the treasury departments but later automation was introduced with the support of NIC. Currently, all the bills are being generated online including treasury. It is also generating online pension to maintain transparency and reduce costly service delivery. The main steps that have been eliminated after the computerisation manual posting of accounts, manual communication of budget, issuance of NOCs and budget reallocation, among others.

Session 2 – Challenges in Cyber Security CCTV Monitoring is a Must Gautam Goradia, CEO, ComSur CCTV needs proper monitoring to prevent untoward incidents. It is the duty of the management to ensure that CCTVs are being monitored. The corporate espionage case that occured in the petroleum ministry, the camera operator had himself turned off the CCTVs making it difficult to get the video footage. Similarly, a Police Inspector had shot at another cop at Vakola police station. Later, it was found that the CCTVs were not working.

Similarly, a girl child was molested in Mumbai and when the recorder of CCTV was checked, it was found it wasn’t working. So the moral of the story is that monitoring of CCTV cameras is extremely important. One should check video footage on a daily basis as a standard operating procedure to take preventive measures.

Cyber Security Need of the Hour Ashok Kumar, ADG Vigilance, Uttarakhand Cyber security holds extreme importance in today’s era. With the advancement of technology, the number of cyber crimes has also gone up significantly. The Snowden revelations have exposed that how big nations are snooping on other countries and monitoring every possible activity from their servers. The future wars will be on cyber space, which is affecting everyone’s life right from an individual to a country. The reach of cyber crime is increasing day by day in sync with technological advancements. There is nothing secured in Internet database.

As an instance if one thinks that his mail, banks and social media site passwords are 100 per cent secure then it’s not true, as everything is passing through web browsers.

Be Secure, Be Safe Dr Sadanand Date, Assistant Inspector General of Police (Police Modernisation), Uttarakhand Challenges to cyber security are very real and dangerous. In today’s life Internet has become a lifeline in every aspect of life, business and delivery of essential services. Cyber-crime is on the rise and has far reaching impact like disruption of critical infrastructure, financial frauds and data breaches. The threat is no longer static, as it is diverse and constantly evolving. There are numerous kinds of cyber crimes like identity threats, financial frauds and cyber defamation with the help of Internet, hacking, forgery, printing counterfeits currency notes from computer, fishing, credit card frauds and corporate espionage among others. Emerging trends in the cyber crime is not only about money. With the increase in mobile internet penetration, threats in social media are also augmenting. Police have to be one step ahead of the cyber criminals.

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Helpline to Prevent Wildlife Crime Paramjeet Singh, CEO, CAMPA, Uttarakhand We have recently opened a call centre to ensure forest and wildlife security. As Uttarakhand has around 70 per cent forest cover, the wildlife crime is also prevailing considerably. The call centre was launched on 30 June 2014 in Kumaoun region and after obtaining a good response, we unveiled it across the State for wildlife protection on 5 June, 2015 on World Environment Day. We have given a facility to people to register wildlife related complaints through a phone helpline. Its India’s first automatic call centre, which has over 300 lines to prevent choking of calls, one can also upload photos and videos of illicit wildlife crimes on the URL of the website.“The Government and private players should work in tandem to encourage people to use technology and make it simple to make eGovernance a success,” he said.

Session 3 – Leveraging Technology for Building Smart Cities under Digital India Programme Tech-Savvy India to Beat Counterparts Krishna Prasad, Senior Sales Director, Cisco System Incorporation In India, we have got massive challenges like shortage of doctors, nurses, teachers among others. We have to find ways to leverage technology to solve some of those challenges. When we talk about smart city, the pace of technology is accelerating at a phenomenal pace, so it is changing business modules and making businesses go out of their comfort zones very fast. In India, 590 million people will live in cities by the year 2030, which is almost one third of the population of the country. It is going to put huge stress on the urban infrastructure. The government can deliver governance on mobile devices by using Wi-Fi as a transport mechanism.

Go High-tech to Become Smart Citizen Dr R Meenakshi Sundaram Vice Chairman, Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority (MDDA) A city could be considered as Smart City if it makes the lives of citizens easy. If the citizens are given hassle-free services by the government then it is supposed to be a Smart City. Every part of such cities should be meticulously planned and must have an efficient public transport system. The 21st century governance is not about people standing in a queue at the government office to avail a particular service. A Smart City has to necessarily incorporate technology to deliver all the essential services. The MDDA has launched an ERP system, which is functioning for the past two years that has made peoples’ lives easy. We wanted to make it a complete e-office and implement the ERP. We took the government to citizens (G2C) services first for the convenience of citizens.

Single-Window Solution Tilak Raj Dua Senior Director, Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association (TAIPA) Although there is no standard definition of a Smart City but it’s a concept that could have good waste management, lighting, and IT infrastructure. It is important to highlight infrastructure requirement, which is very essential. The mobile connectivity should be strengthened in the remote areas and there should be one-time fee and a single window system. The Uttarakhand government is working with the Department of Telecom in this regard.

eGovernance and mGovernance Nitin Bhaduria, Dehradun Municipal Corporation, Municipal Commissioner We have already implemented a few eGovernance and mGovernance initiatives. We wanted to have vertical integration of services that we offer to the citizens where they can apply for birth, death and any kind of certificates.

We want to boost DMC’s revenue collection for which a three-phase strategy has been chalked-out. On a mobile platform, one can apply for many key certificates. We also wish to offer them city-based information like nearest doctors, schools, government institutions and tourist places, etc. We already have a telephone helpline on which people can lodge their grievances and can check the status. We believe that increasing transparency would help us to serve the citizens in a better manner. We have commercial activity monitoring system too. We want to make DMC’s assets online through which people can schedule their activity accordingly.

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Smart Governance Prem Narayan, Director Railway Stores, Ministry of Railways Smart Cities do have different forms across the world like knowledge based city, broadband city, mobile ambience city and digital city. The proposed Smart Cities need to have different infrastructures to be in place for daily needs like healthcare, hygiene, trade and commerce of the people. The most accepted definition of a Smart City would be that these cities are dynamic ecosystem of citizens, authorities and companies that cooperate to develop products and services to foster innovation to develop a sustainable city. It should have presence of liveability, smart forces, smart economy, smart governance and smart people. The Government should also use unconventional source of energy for that they will also get the credit and zero waste concept for civic bodies.

Session 4 – Energising Uttarakhand: Effective Disaster Management and Connectivity, Role of PSUs Railway Network Umakant Lal, Chief Vigilance Officer-Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited PSUs play a very economic role in our country. They have created the industrial base in India as well as generated a lot of employment for the people. There are around 280 central PSUs and 24 PSUs in Uttarakhand.

As it is sufficient for railways to run the goods and passenger trains together on the existing lines so DFCCIL was built to have a different dedicated corridor for connecting the mines and port areas.

This dedicated corridor was made to make new corridors for both goods and passenger trains in order to get smooth movement for connectivity to different places. Uttarakhand can be connected with Saharanpur or with Tapri and Jagadhari. It all depends on the survey done by Railways. Rishikesh would be connected by rail network by 2017, as the project was laid down in 2012.

IT-Enabled Intranet Sanjay Negi, District Information Officer, Rudraprayag Post 2013 disaster in Uttarakhand, various IT-enabled services have been implemented in Rudraprayag district for strengthening our disaster management authorities and communication network for the safety of tourists.

These IT-enabled services are operated on local intranet network, which helps in video conferencing from Kedarnath to headquarters directly.

All digital display boards for all information related to alerts and other information have already been put in the district. Mobile app related to all information of resources just like helipads, schools, health centres, etc. have already been introduced by us.

NOFN Services to Reach Inaccessible Areas SP Shukla, Chief General Manager, BSNL In BSNL, we have been working on enhancing connectivity across Uttarakhand. Connecting the inaccessible areas, we have been working under the National Optical Fibre Network project. We are connecting the entire Gram Panchayat of the State with 100 mbps connectivity. We are proud that 120 Gram Panchayats under NOFN project includes five from Uttarakhand.

We have to keep all the aspects in mind for better and available resources in the State in order to improve the connectivity.

Going Paperless MK Chowdhary Executive Director, ONGC Initially before 2001, we have introduced various IT-enabled systems in various departments of ONGC for better communication and accurate work. In 2001, the entire infrastructure was revamped and SAP was implemented in ONGC. We monitor 7000 servers, 1000 routers and more than 1,00,000 lakh devices online in ONGC. In addition to that, we have built different system for video conferencing for in-house people so that they can communicate with the different teams easily. We have also started paperless working and it will be successfully implemented by October 2017.

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Using Mobile for Disaster Management Rajan S Mathews, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India Most of the communication in India is done through mobile and it’s usage is very high as compared to other countries in the world, which is a major risk to communication during disaster management. Often, we get so much caught up with the outcomes of disaster that we do not focus on how we prevent ourselves from these disasters. We were not able to fuel our towers during disaster management, which resulted into failures. So, we should have a strategy to provide the resource to the towers during disaster and we have an ability to do that. We are joining hands with the government for that.

Session 5 – Technology for Healthcare Services, Tourism and ESDM e-Initiatives for Tourism Rakesh Kapoor Additional Secretary (RPG), Government of Himachal Pradesh One of the initiatives, e-initiative, for sustainable tourism in Himalayas was started by young entrepreneurs and this project has now strength of 700 people. People like taxi owner, guest house owners and various people related to tourism are benefitted with this initiative. This helped in growing the tourism on a very larger scale in Himachal Pradesh.

Good Health for All A Vijaylaxmi, General Manager-IT, Arogyasri Health Care Trust, Government of Telangana Aarogyasri is the flagship scheme of all health initiatives of the Government of Telangana, with a mission to provide quality healthcare to the poor. The aim of the Government is to achieve ‘Health for All’. In order to facilitate the effective implementation of the scheme, the State Government has set up the Aarogyasri Health Care Trust. The scheme provides financial protection of up to Rs. two lakh in a year for the treatment of serious ailments requiring hospitalisation and surgery to families living below poverty line.

The objective of the scheme is to improve access of BPL families to quality medical care for treatment of identified diseases involving hospitalisation, surgeries and therapies through an identified network of healthcare providers.

We have build up online system for all employees in the trust. The aim is to maintain all the information about the employees. We have also implemented the mobile application for patients so that we can identify their information and what has been the treatment.

Generating Employment Deepak Sharma Additional Director, DeitY, Government of India We have done extremely well in the software development, so now we have decided to enter in manufacturing the electronic goods. Either we start importing goods from other countries or we can manufacture it here, which will lead to employment generation for our country. The demand of electronic goods will grow at a very larger rate in the coming years. Keeping all factors in mind, the Government of India has announced a policy, which includes infrastructure, incentivise the entrepreneurs and innovation.

Session 6 – ICT in Education & Aadhaar-based Services Businesses for Customers B N Sathpathy Senior Advisor, NITI Aayog, Government of India We are trying to see how business can serve the consumers and how government helps in doing that. Today, if we need something it should be available online. The basic objective of the digital economy is to have all the services and products online. The kinds of businesses, which are growing and which will grow are professional services.

Ease of doing business has been a big priority for the government, as business helps in growth of economy as well as for employment generation. Niti Aayog will be launching a scheme for start-ups. We are inviting proposals from all states to get as much benefit from this scheme.

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Video Tutorials for Students Shyama Iyer, National Coordinator-Training, Spoken Tutorial Project, IIT Mumbai Recently, we received an award from Google for implementing the best Massive online Open Courses and spoken tutorial and important aspect of MOOC. Video Tutorial helps in better connectivity with the students with interactive ideas and students enjoy studying through these video tutorials.

In Uttarakhand, last year we have done many things. Our major highlight was the remote education programme.

Under this programme, a small team from our campus joins any campus across India to keep us connected with the students. We have completed 2500 training session across India because of grassroots partners. A group of 25 to 27 managers are the part of team and we remain connected with more and more campuses.

Education to Overcome Challenges Dr. Durgesh Pant Director, Uttarakhand Space Application Centre, Government of Uttarakhand Uttarakhand is consists of different geographies and there are many challenges on account of this. Network issues, access to IT-initiatives, and connectivity problem are some common challenges. Education happens to be the biggest reconstructor for these challenges. It provides people with ideas about how can they stay back facing these challenges and how can they overcome these. Virtual class and video streaming are some innovations implemented by us under ICT tools. We regularly organise training programmes for students to remain updated in the technology domain. Mobile integrated with GIS would also prove to be a emergent tool for new technology for the education world. We have mapped 32,000 schools of the State through an application and check the status of admission and students. We can also video stream with any of the institution.

Access Your Account Anywhere B K Das, General Manager, State Bank of India Banking always has been the heart of economy. It represents the economy and ICT has become the heart of banking in some period of time. After implementation of ICT tools, not only banks are benefitted but also the consumers. Banks have now been able to reach the remotest locations and it has only been possible after technological development happened in the States. Customer can access his account from anywhere across the world. Internet Banking and mobile banking helps consumers do anything without going to a bank. A consumer can do everything sitting at his office or home. Trading and Transactions have also become easier with the help of ICT tools. Any request can also be made online and later it’s status could be checked .

Use Aadhaar for Security Syed Uzair Ahmed, Manager State Projects, UIDAI, Government of India Unique Identification project was initially started by the Planning Commission as an initiative that would provide identification for each resident across the country and would be used primarily as the basis for efficient delivery of welfare services. Since 2006, when administration gave approval for the project, the vision behind UIDAI was to empower residents of India with a unique identity and a digital platform to authenticate anytime, anywhere and so far we have allotted Aadhaar Cards to around 87 crore people. We register around 12 lakh Aadhaar application per day. This is the largest biometric system in the world and would help in authentication of the service provider and the residence. One can use Aadhaar Card for security purpose in banks and digital website as unique identity. We need to connect with different departments and institutions, if they want to link Aadhaar for the security purpose.

Speakers pose for a group photograph at the end of session ‘Leveraging Technology for Building Smart Cities under Digital India Programme’

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ePunjab Conference, Expo & Awards, September 2015

IT

Government of Punjab has been progressing in its journey towards creating a knowledge society by harnessing the power of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

To achieve this objective, Punjab has enunciated many initiatives in the ICT sector, which will deliver significant benefits to the citizens and businesses and also improve the efficiency of Government functioning.

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Elets Technomedia, along with Government of Punjab, is organizing ePunjab Conference, Expo & Awards in September 2015 in Punjab.

This summit will highlight e-Governance initiatives in Punjab that serve as a benchmark for other states to follow, as well as providing a knowledge sharing platform of best eGovernance practices across the nation.

Focus Areas > Citizen Centric Service Delivery in Punjab. > Community Management in Police through Saanjh Centers. > eGovernance in Food Grains Management. > Use of IT in Management of Social Security/Welfare Schemes.

Chief Guest Parkash Singh Badal Chief Minister, Government of Punjab

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> mGovernance for Government Services. > IT Investment in Punjab > ICT in key sectors like Health, Education, Banking, Urban Development etc. > IT in Agriculture and allied activities like Dairy Farming.

Guest of Honour

Sukhbir Singh Badal Deputy Chief Minister, Government of Punjab

Patner Publications

Programme Chair Sarvesh Kaushal Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab

Organiser

www.eletsonline.com

For queries, please contact: Kartik Sharma, +91 8860651635, kartik@elets.in

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