eGov June 2016

CONFERENCE | EXHIBITION

KALYAN-DOMBIVLI

17-18 June 2016

Contents TECHNOLOGY

SIDDHARTHA GUPTA

ke-goa special

Dr Pramod Sawant, Chairman, GSIDC, Govt. of Goa

Dr A K Manocha, Chairman & MD, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), Govt. of India

Dr Omkar Rai, Director General, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI)

Gyanesh Pandey, Chairman & Managing Director, HSCC (India) Ltd

Rafiq Somani, Country Manager - India, Asean & ANZ, ANSYS

Sidharth Kuncalienker, MLA & Vice Chairman, GSIDC, Govt. of Goa

GSIDC: Special Report

Sanjit Rodrigues, Managing Director, GSIDC, Govt. of Goa

Ameya Abhyankar, Director-IT & Special Secretary to CM, Govt. of Goa

Muktesh Chander, Director General of Police (DGP), Govt. of Goa

Sudhir Mahajan, Urban Development Secretary, Govt of Goa

Dipak Dessai, Commissioner of the City Corporation of Panaji, Govt. of Goa

Karthik Kashyap, Police Superintendent (Crime), Govt. of Goa

V Swaminathan, Senior Executive Vice President, Kotak Mahindra Bank

COVER STORY

Selva Kumari J, MD, Kanpur Electricity Supply Company Limited (KESCo)

Event Report: Smart Brains Discuss Jabalpur Smart City

55 Event Report: Through Lens Eye

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Panaji Heads for Smarter Tomorrow

EDITORIAL

SIDDHARTHA GUPTA

TECHNOLOGY

Mission Smart City Panaji, the capital city of the State of Goa, is one of the globally-acclaimed tourist destinations, with around 600,000 domestic and 88,000 international tourist visits every year. In addition, it has a daily floating population of 5,000-15,000 people, besides its own denizens. Handling such a large headcount can be a challenge for any city unless the urban infrastructure is geared up to match up to the challenge. So, Panaji’s selection by the Central Government as city to be developed into a Smart City was hailed by all quarters. Although the city has been managing its affairs pretty well over the years, once ‘smart infrastructure’ is in place, the city stakeholders can look forward to brighter times for the ‘Planet Tourism’. What earned Panaji a place in the coveted list of smart cities is its numerous initiatives for the welfare of both its citizens as well as visitors. The city boasts of a Special Tourist Police force, regular police patrolling, helpline for women and women cab drivers to ensure their safety, citizen portal for road safety, rationalised level of pavements to ensure pedestrian safety, etc. Given the pro-active attitude of the local administration as well as its civic authorities, one can rest assured that the

Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (GSIDC)—which has been tasked with the responsibility to take Panaji on the smart city path—will transform the city into a land that many will aspire to have a feel of. With a view to highlighting the challenges and opportunities towards metamorphosis of Panaji into a smart city, Elets Technomedia, in association with GSIDC, is organising “Elets Knowledge Exchange - Goa”, with “Smart Cities in the Era of Digital India” as the underlying theme, in the picturesque setting of the capital city of Panaji on 10-11 June 2016. The two-day meet will see vibrant sessions on Smart Cities, Digital India, Make in India, Swachh Bharat, AMRUT, Securing Cities in the Era of Smart Cities, etc. Key policymakers from the State of Goa and across India, and industry leaders and experts will take part in focused sessions on the given themes. The event will also serve as a platform for exchange of knowledge between key stakeholders active in the fields of Governance and Urban Development – with special focus on Smart Cities, Education, Healthcare and BFSI. We dedicate this special issue of eGov magazine to the zeal, all-round enthusiasm and channelised efforts in the State to don the mantle of a Smart City. Happy reading!

With a view to highlighting the challenges and opportunities towards metamorphosis of Panaji into a smart city, Elets Technomedia, in association with GSIDC, is organising “Elets Knowledge Exchange - Goa”, with “Smart Cities in the Era of Digital India” as the underlying theme, in the picturesque setting of the capital city of Panaji on 10-11 June 2016. Dr Ravi Gupta Editor-in-Chief Ravi.Gupta@elets.in

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Francis D’Souza Deputy Chief Minister State of Goa

No. DY. C.M./ Message / 2015

Date: 29th April 2016

MESSAGE I am glad to know that Elets Technomedia is organizing its 2nd annual Knowledge Exchange Summit 2016 in the State of Goa on 10th and 11th June.

Francis D’Souza Deputy Chief Minister State of Goa

I congratulate Elets Technomedia for Co-organizing Knowledge Exchange Summit with Goa Government. I hope this conference will give value to all stakeholders working towards making the country digitally empowered and a smarter Nation. I convey my best wishes on the occasion.

Address: First Floor, Secretariat (Annexe), Alto-Porvorim, Bardez, Goa – India 403521 Telephones: +91 832 2419511 (O), 0832 2262065 (R), +91 9890635788 (M) E-mail: francis@politician.com

KE-GOA SPECIAL

COVER STORY

Panaji Heads for

Smarter Tomorrow Mobility, retrofitting, IT-enabled municipal service delivery, solid waste management and efficient healthcare facilities have emerged as some of the key focus areas of the smart city mission for Panaji, writes Nirmal Anshu Rajan of Elets News Network (ENN)

s the buzz of “Smart City” goes around, the first question to strike the mind is: what defines a smart city? The answer is simple and straight that there is no universally accepted definition of a smart city. It may mean different things to different people: the concept varies from nation to nation and city to city, depending on development, growth, resources and aspirations of the residents. However, to cut the long story short, few would disagree that a smart city has conditions conducive to providing a better quality of life to its citizens. Panaji, the capital city of the State of Goa is also the headquarters of North Goa district. It has 30 administrative wards spread over an area of 8.12 sq.km with a population of 14.59 lakh, as per the 2011 census figures. A globallyacclaimed tourist hub, Panaji hosts around 600,000 domestic and 88,000 international tourists annually, with a daily floating population of 5,00015,000 people.

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Given the figures, it looked imperative for the city to have all necessary infrastructure, including an efficient transport system, smart policing, a wellregulated traffic system, adequacy of basic civic amenities, an effective solid waste management system in place, and all this while also preserving its natural surroundings and its heritage nature. Although the “tourists’ planet” had quite a lot already in place, Panaji featuring in the second list of smart cities issued by the Centre came as a booster dose for the city. It placed the capital city of Goa among the top 13 cities selected from a list of 23 for fasttrack mode of smart city mission. The Government, along with the team of consultants from ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives), South Asia presented the draft blueprint for the city of Panaji to the Government of India for the smart city mission. The proposal was judged on its credibility of implementation, city vision and strategy, economic and

COVER STORY KE-GOA SPECIAL

environmental impact, cost effectiveness, innovation and scalability. And, it happened. The selection of the city could happen also because of a SWOT analysis from a synthesis of feedback received from stakeholders and focus groups in the city, from an analysis of municipal services status and civic amenities’ provision and from an understanding of the inherent economic, demographic, social and environmental conditions in the city. Following the development, the Goa Government has designated the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) as the body to manage and implement the smart city mission for Panaji. As per the plan, Panaji as a smart city will have better transport infrastructure for its residents in the form of hop-on hop-off buses, pedestrian plazas, solid waste management disposal system and hopefully a better quality of life for the citizens.

Strength

Panaji’s strength lies in the fact that it has the highest per capita income in India with good intra- and interstate connectivity. It also ranks high on the Human Development Index (HDI), high literacy rate of 87 per cent (2011 census) and skilled workforce (Work Participation Rate of 42.5 per cent)

Panaji’s strength lies in the fact that it has the highest per capita income in India with good intra- and inter-state connectivity. It also ranks high on the Human Development Index (HDI), high literacy rate of 87 per cent (2011 census) and skilled workforce (Work Participation Rate of 42.5 per cent). Almost 97.32 per cent of the workforce is involved in the tertiary sector, ably supporting the tourism sector, which forms the revenue backbone of the city.

Opportunities

As a major international tourist destination, economic growth potential is significant in Goa among all the sectors. The development of outgrowth areas, like Porvorim and Mapusa, where further growth of residential sector is possible, catering to the housing requirements of the population working in Panaji. Panaji is well placed and equipped to transform and ensure a sustainable future with potential for adopting 24x7 water supply, LED street lighting,

moving towards a zero landfill city, adopting parking policies deterring on-street parking, public transport provision, open spaces conservation and enhancing biodiversity in the city. The city’s built heritage and its unique form are essential to retain and promote tourism as well as foster civic pride.

Action Plan

The Corporation of the City of Panaji, after stakeholder consultations, has decided to constitute a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), - Imagine Panaji Ltd (IPL) as a limited company under the Companies Act 2013, subject to approval from Registrar of Companies. The State Government of Goa and the Corporation of the City of Panaji will be the promoters of the SPV, having 50:50 equity share holding. The Articles of Association governing the functioning of IPL will be defined by the Model Articles of Association by the Central Government. IPL will be governed by a Board of Directors, consisting of a Chairman, a CEO and nine other directors consisting of various officials of the State as well Central Government. Presence of a prominent citizen of Panaji on the board will ensure citizenconnect and two-way information flow. The person will also be a member of the city level Smart City Advisory Forum. The Chairperson of IPL, as per Mission guidelines, will have to be appointed by the State Government and it may choose to appoint the Collector or District Magistrate, Municipal Commissioner or Chief Executive of the Urban Development Authority.

The Road Ahead

Panaji city can benefit immensely from the smart city interventions by initiating smart projects to transform the city by capitalising on its many and unique strengths and opportunities to overcome the known weaknesses and potential threats to become a lighthouse smart city that is sustainable, resilient and future ready.

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KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW DR PRAMOD SAWANT

GSIDC in Action

Revamping Infra to Improve Peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lives Under the Panaji Smart City initiative, the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (GSIDC) looks forward to working towards improving the quality of life of the people by developing roads, bridges and other sectors of the city in line with its heritage. The Corporation also intends to create awareness about its brand across India and internationally, says Dr Pramod Sawant, Chairman, GSIDC, in an interaction with Manish Arora of Elets News Network (ENN). Excerpts:

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KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW DR PRAMOD SAWANT

“GSIDC as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) is working for speedy implementation of all infrastructure projects in roads, bridges, flyovers, traffic management, water supply augmentation, tourism-related projects, etc., thus creating awareness about brand ‘GSIDC’ across India and globally”

an you tell something about GSIDC and its role in the Smart City Mission? The Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (GSIDC) is a wholly-owned government entity of the Government of Goa, registered under the Companies Act 1956 with the Registrar of Companies, Panaji. GSIDC as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) is working for speedy implementation of all infrastructure projects in roads, bridges, flyovers, traffic management, bus stands, water supply augmentation, hospitals, tourism-related projects, etc., thus creating awareness about brand “GSIDC” across India and globally. Its mandate is to serve the needs of public by commissioning infrastructure projects merging with the ambiance of Goan architecture and being eco-friendly at the same time. It also serves to achieve hallmark in the rapid qualitative design and construction of infrastructure projects, mainly in roads, bridges and building sectors. GSIDC, through the smart city initiative, envisages a vision to emphasise on overall development of Panaji city and in turn enhancing the quality of life of Goans. What is the first thing that comes to your mind while talking about the Smart Cities Mission? The Smart Cities Mission launched by the Government of India is for uplift of people’s life in terms of access to good infrastructure, roads, lights, clean water, enhanced transportation and better medical facilities. The goal of building a smart city is to use technology to improve the efficiency of services and meet residents’ needs. In this Mission, we are working towards upgrading the facilities available in the city, by making services available to the people on demand, as and when required – just in a “smart way”. The sectors that have been developing smart city technology include government services, transport and traffic management, energy, health-

care, water, innovative urban agriculture and waste management. Smart city applications are developed with the goal of improving the management of urban woes and allowing for real-time responses to challenges. Could you recount for us some of the milestones achieved by GSIDC in terms of development in Goa? Keeping in sync with the Corporation’s uncompromising commitment to the holistic development of the state of Goa and the principles of inclusive growth, GSIDC, has over the last 10 years completed over 200 projects with an average of 20 projects a year which includes roads and bridges, hospitals, schools, administrative infrastructure, stadia and more. Some of the major on-going projects that could be listed are construction of new Mandovi bridge, 500-bedded District Hospital at Margao, design and construction of bridge connecting Keri to Tiracol, MSW Plant at North Goa and Rua de Ourem bridge to name a few. Besides, execution of IFFI 2014 works, ESG Complex Panaji, Inox, over 200 schools across the state, Ravindra Bhavan, South Goa Collectorate and bridges all over the state are some of the various projects that have been completed by GSIDC. How do you create awareness among different people about Smart Cities Mission? We have been regularly in touch with the people of Panaji through extensive consultation process for their views on city development, upgradation plan and implementation strategy. We have rolled out various dedicated social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter for city consultation including other citywide outreach activities. We have been regularly consulting the people of Panaji for the advancement of this mission having kept their needs in mind and accordingly designing the proposed interventions for them.

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KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW SIDHARTH KUNCALIENKER

Making Panaji a

Better Urban Space ‘Smart Panaji’ would be a city having public services with the highest level of efficiency at the lowest possible cost, says Sidharth Kuncalienker, MLA and Vice Chairman, Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC), in an interaction with Manish Arora of Elets News Network (ENN). Kuncalienker also speaks on the necessity and ways to keep the state capital clean

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KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW SIDHARTH KUNCALIENKER

hat is the first thing that comes to your mind while talking about the Smart City Mission? The Smart Cities Mission needs to be made more liveable while retaining its basic character and improving the living condition of the citizens. A smart city would be a city providing public services to its citizens with the highest possible level of efficiency at the lowest possible cost in the most convenient manner. Why Panaji was projected as a potential smart city? Panaji has lots of amenities as compared to other cities of the State. We have tourist spots here, industrial parks, ports, beaches as well as beautiful living places. Now we need to take all these to the household level, provide clean water, proper sewerage,

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Adoption of good technologies, which can be feasible in terms of good for common man, will play a major role in the Smart City Mission. Replacing high usage lights with more efficient LED lights, bringing technology in parking services, etc., will transform Panaji into a smart cityâ&#x20AC;?

24X7 electricity supply and pathways for the people to walk safely on. These services should be made available to every citizen in a most hassle-free manner. We also need to add smart components like smart metering, LED lights, better transport, better parking facility across the city, etc., to be smart and better.

According to you, how important is technology in terms of smart city projects? Basically, adoption of good technologies, which can be feasible in terms of good for common man, will play a major role in the Smart City Mission. Replacing high usage lights with more efficient LED lights, bringing technology in parking services, signalling, GPS, navigation and other such use of technology will be a source of smart Panaji. Tourism could also be a major mode of investment under the Smart City Mission in Goa, which has the potential to attract large investors towards this Mission. The Prime Minister lays huge stress on Swachha Bharat programme. On your part, how do you keep your city clean? We conduct regular cleaning drives, with the involvement of all the departments. We also generate aware-

ness among people to keep beaches and city clean. Besides, we conduct regular check across beaches and river fronts, so that it is kept clean and looks always attractive to tourists. GSIDC has also made huge contribution to the cause of solid waste management recently, which is an example for others to emulate on how to keep oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s city clean.

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KE-GOA SPECIAL REPORT

WASTE MANAGEMENT

Goa Gets First-of-Its-Kind Waste Management Plant The waste treatment plant is a state-of-the-art modern facility, based on the mechanical biological treatment (MBT) process with proper segregation, recovery of recyclables and bio-methanation technology, reports Elets News Network (ENN)

he ultra-modern waste management plant based on German Technology under the “Make in India” programme, which is Asia’s biggest and most ambitious project, has been initiated in Goa. This Solid Waste Management (SWM) plant is the first of its kind in the country and was inaugurated at the hands of Manohar Parrikar, Union Minister for Defence, and Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, on the auspicious occasion of Goa Statehood Day. The waste treatment plant is a state-of-the-art modern facility, based on the mechanical biological treatment (MBT) process with proper segregation, recovery of recyclables and bio-methanation technology. The waste treatment technologies have been borrowed from different parts of the world. The machinery has been imported from Germany and Italy. The new facility is comprised of three components – material segregation and recycling centre, treatment of wet fraction via bio-methanation, and composting section and landfill area. The facility will have minimum human intervention, enclosed sheds and computer-controlled equipment for handling different types of input material. The functioning of the plant and selection of technology has been done keeping in focus

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PROJECT DETAILS l Area of Land acquired for the facility: 1,21,580.00 Sq. mtr l Construction Cost of the project: 145.95 Crores. l Total Capital Grant: `299.00 Crores l Total Operational support Grant: `70.00 Crores l Name of Contractor: M/s. SMC Infrastructures Pvt. Ltd l Construction period: 18 months l Operation & Maintenance period: 10 Years that all issues of odour, unsightly garbage mounds and leachate generation are addressed and handled with the aim of minimising the same. Electricity produced in-house from the organic fraction of the waste will be used to power the plant operation. Composting and maturation of dewatered sludge will help produce manure. The plant will have a fully-automated process where machines will be used to sort and separate garbage. The facility will also act as a learning centre to create awareness about the positive environmental impact of the solid waste treatment facility in the State.

KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW SANJIT RODRIGUES

Infrastructure Development Top

Most Priority for GSIDC Panaji is a city with emerging new ideas and has inherent strengths for developing into a smart city. Sanjit Rodrigues, Managing Director, GSIDC, talks about his vision towards the Smart City Mission and how it will shape Panaji into Smart Panaji. Excerpts from an interview with Manish Arora & Shambhudeep Hore of Elets News Network (ENN)

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KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW SANJIT RODRIGUES

lease share your vision towards Smart City Mission in Panaji? During the consultation exercise done at various levels during the buildup of the Smart City Mission submission as well as during creation of our Holistic Master Plan, City Development Plan, Sanitation Plan the aspirations of the people, their needs and wants have been discussed, debated, deliberated, suggested upon and we have come out with a vision which reflects the true spirit of Panaji. “The City of Panaji will transform into a world-class city, achieving a better quality of life in a sustainable environment through economic growth and citizen participation, while retaining our heritage and cultural diversity” IT companies and non IT companies would play a big role in development of Panaji as a Smart City. What are your plans to attract Indian as well as international companies towards this Mission? Panaji is a living city, with ports, churches, temples, parks and markets. It has been a vibrant city which is well planned. If we just maintain our heritage, culture and carefully enhance our infrastructure properly, we would stand

at an The hallmark of Panaji is citizen participation. Citizens participate very actively in all the consultation sessions. Panaji would be the best place for new ideas to flow in with its inherent resource availability. Planned infrastructure development is the top most priority for us.

“Panaji is a living city, having ports, churches, temples, parks and markets. It has been a vibrant city which is well-planned. All we need to do is to maintain the heritage and infrastructure from olden times properly” How has been Panaji rated in Swacch Bharat Mission? How do you see Panaji in the coming days for this Mission? In comparison to other places, we are way ahead in the country in terms of solid waste management. Our commitment to the segregation model and citizens support is unparalleled. Anything done in terms of cleanliness or Swachh Bharat Mission, will be trend setting and others will have to follow us. As far as our aim in terms of Solid Waste Management and sanitation is concerned, we would like to now harness latest technology and its advances.It will make our Solid Waste Management model more efficient, more people oriented and easier to access. All this can be done with use of selected and appropriate technology and the Smart City Mission will lead us into this. As on date, in the last survey conducted by the Swacchh Bharat Mission, we have been ranked, 16th among all cities. There have been various private surveys where we were ranked much higher. What is the role of citizen engagement in Smart City Mission? As I have said earlier,citizen engagement has been a hallmark for our civic administration for long. Citizens have commented, talked, given their aspirations and debated on various occasions for Panaji. Citizen views wholly a part of this plan and the entire benefit will be citizen centric.

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KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW AMEYA ABHYANKAR

Gearing up to be

Startup Capital The Narendra Modi-led Government has set the states competing with each other, for their own benefit though, to grab the first position in one field or the other: if Odisha topped in the Smart Cities Challenge, Goa is leaving no stone unturned to emerge as the startup capital of India. Ameya Abhyankar, DirectorIT & Special Secretary to Chief Minister, speaks to Gautam Debroy of Elets News Network (ENN)

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KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW AMEYA ABHYANKAR

t one of Elets Technomedia events last year, Goa released its IT Investment Policy 2015-20, which highlighted data about startups in Goa. What are your thoughts regarding this? The Information Technology Department and the Government of Goa looks at startups as the next big thing that will happen in India. We want Goa to be the “Startup Capital” of this country. We want people to come here, settle, design, develop and come out with concepts and ideas from different walks of life. So, in our IT policy, we’ve paid special attention to startups, both within incubators and also anywhere. We have also come up with a host of incentives for them in terms of discounted internet bandwidths, one-time seed capital and alike. We want to take this forward with a focused emphasis on startups in the form of a startup policy in times to come.

“We want Goa to be the ‘Startup Capital’ of India. We want people to come here, settle, design, develop and come out with concepts and ideas… In our IT policy, we’ve offered a host of incentives to them”

What would be your strategy to attract startup that are working outside Goa? In Goa, there are more than 200 IT companies. Few people know about this. In February, we held a “Hackathon” in our department where we had created a site called www. goamade.com, which is a crowdsourced site and around 30-35 Goabased companies have registered themselves. The idea was to create an IT directory which will be a single window to all the IT companies, which are there in Goa. There are lots of incubators, which are incubating a lot of startups and I think we have a good ecosystem which needs to have visibility and skilling. What is your take on the emerging concepts, like smart cities and startups, as a whole? Startups and smart cities have a lot of convergence with each other. In a smart city, decisions that citizens make on day-to-day basis in real time result in saving time, increas-

ing convenience, improving quality of life, reducing the overall stress level, etc. And, I think there are different IT startups which power each one of these verticals. There are apps which can tell you about availability of parking space and accordingly you can decide whether you want to take your car or avail public transport. Even in the case of public transport, you don’t know when the next bus is arriving. Here, IoT comes into the picture again. So, there is lot of convergence.

“Panaji was not there in the first smart city list, but it has secured a place in the second one. I think Panaji would be a fertile ground to experiment with new and innovative ideas related to smart cities…” In Goa, Panaji has been selected as a city to be made “smart”. What is your opinion about that? Panaji was not there in the first smart city list, but it has secured a place in the second one. I think Panaji would be a fertile ground to experiment with new and innovative ideas related to smart cities, and I think the departments concerned have already made a pretty good proposal in this regard. Whatever support will be required from the IT Department, we are ever-ready to provide that. You talked about startups, smart cities, etc. What are the big challenges, according to you, facing the execution of these concepts? One is internet for sure. Goa does have issues of bandwidth on which we need to work upon and arrive at a resolution. Secondly, I think despite the presence of every possible smart city component here, we need to be organised into an ecosystem. These, according to me, are the two biggest challenges present as far as linking of the concepts of smart cities and startups are concerned.

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KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW MUKTESH CHANDER

Policing to Go Smart in Goa New Director General of Police (DGP) Muktesh Chander, who took over the charge in Goa recently, plans to use as much technology for decreasing crime rate and proper traffic management as possible. In an interview with Manish Arora of Elets News Network (ENN), he shares his thoughts on Smart Policing in Goa

“IT would help people locate where the nearest parking slot is available, how much is the parking space, what is the authorised price of parking and other smart guidance for parking. It would also be available to the system manager sitting in at the control room”

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According to you, what are the various components of Smart Policing? Smart Policing is a pre-condition for a city to be looked upon as smart. So, it has to be ensured before a city is declared to be smart. Some of the components that will play a major role in smart policing are Smart Traffic Management System, Smart Signalling, Smart Parking System, Passenger Information System, etc. IT would help people locate where the nearest parking slot is available, how much is the parking space, what is the authorised price of parking and other smart guidance for parking. It would also be available to the system manager sitting in at the control room. This would also have CCTV cameras installed everywhere, backed by video analytics, through which automatic enforcement of traffic violations, speed violations, red light jumping, wrong lane driving and wrong parking would be taken care of. Special systems would be installed to zoom the number plates. The details of the car owner can be taken easily to initiate necessary action against violations. Signals would not be static; they would now be talking to each other. These Intelligent Traffic Signal System knows where traffic is coming from and going to.

How much important is training and capacity building for introducing such measures for smart policing? Training and capacity building is the most important part when we introduce a new technology. We organise training sessions and workshops for the new technology initiatives. Officials from police departments attend workshops regularly and learn about new things being implemented worldwide. Tell us a little about e-Challan. e-Challan is going to be an important part of the smart cities initiative. We can check online if one is a repeat offender. So, for a repeat offender, enhanced penalty and strict action could be taken. How can technology help in reducing crime rate under Smart Policing? In terms of criminal activities, we would have CCTV cameras installed with face recognition system. This would help trace the criminal activities going on in the night and also help us identify the criminals easily. We will also have an automatic emergency response system, where a caller’s geolocation is available and the nearest resource information will be available readily to the person to save time and be connected.

KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW SUDHIR MAHAJAN

Citizens to be Supreme in

‘Smart City Panaji’ Plan Panaji, which means the land that never floods, had so far only terraced hills, concrete buildings with balconies and red-tiled roofs, churches and a riverside promenade. But now, the citizens will have all the elements that any modern city can boast of in terms of infrastructure. State’s Urban Development Secretary Sudhir Mahajan, in an interview with Manish Arora and Shambhudeep Hore of Elets News Network (ENN), tells how the government has involved residents and others to elevate Panaji to a world-class city

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KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW SUDHIR MAHAJAN

“As a necessary feature of a smart city, the citizenry has to be interactive… Some key people from the citizenry have already been engaged (through various activities). Our plan proposal mostly consists of the aspirations of the citizens”

hat are the objectives of Smart Cities Mission? The objectives of the Smart Cities Mission are to develop core infrastructure and provide a decent quality of life to the citizens residing in a specific city. There should be sustainable development, every citizen should be assured of 24x7 clean drinking water, a nice sewerage network, clean air, a sense of security and, above all, there should be focus on pedestrianisation and a multi-modal system of transport.

e-governance, so that all the necessary services can be made available at the people’s doorstep and one doesn’t have to move out anywhere. We want to provide all basic amenities — be it health, civic, etc., at the doorstep. The key people from the citizenry have already been involved. We have organised hotspots, conferences, meetings, interactive sessions, etc., for the purpose. It was a mammoth exercise that we undertook. Our plan proposal mostly consists of the aspirations of the citizens.

What are some of the specifications in the roadmap for making Panaji a smart city? Since Panaji is a small place, with only 7 sq.km of area, its development can be strategised in two ways: one is area-based development and the second is a pan-city development. Since this is a very old city having a heritage character, area-based development could help better maintain the cultural heritage of the city. However, this mode of development can be replicated elsewhere, too. And, pan-city development could be in the form of finding smart solutions for transport arrangement like I said previously: things like multi-modal system of transport, focus on pedestrianisation, creation of open spaces, etc. This city has got complete package in terms of geographical versatility – water bodies, rivers, backwaters and the sea. So, all these areas need to be maintained properly. Zoning is to be done, so that an integrated development can take place. And, since the entire proposal has been submitted to the Government of India after extensive consultation with the residents of the city, a consensus has evolved as to how the city has to develop.

“This city (Panaji) has got complete package in terms of geographical versatility – water bodies, rivers, backwaters and the sea. So, we have to be very cautious that no damage is caused to the environment due to developmental activities”

How far is resident participation of the city important in this endeavour? As a necessary feature of a smart city, the citizenry has to be interactive. We should be in a position to provide

How would you take care of the environment in this project? From our past experiences, we have seen that with development gaining pace, the ecology of the place gets destroyed. So, ecosystem and environment are matters of great concern for us. Fortunately, in this city we have a lot of activists, who otherwise also happen to play the role of watchdogs. We have to be very cautious that no damage is caused to the environment while taking up developmental projects. Now that Panaji features in the second list of the Government of India’s Smart Cities list, what would be the next step? The next step is that we will form a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), which will ensure that the plans already been submitted to the Government of India are executed in proper way. SPV will consist of government officials and experts from respective fields. We will hold meetings for finalising various projects and work towards their implementation at various levels.

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KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW DIPAK DESSAI

Smart Cities Must Allow

Flora â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Fauna to Grow No matter how enthusiastically we talk about smart cities and the excitement involving it, we should remain alert that in our endeavour the flora and fauna of the surrounding do not get affected. Dipak Dessai, Commissioner of the Corporation of the City of Panaji, has been in the office for two years now. He shares his experiences and vision for Panaji as a smart city in an interaction with Manish Arora & Shambhudeep Hore of Elets News Network (ENN)

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KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW DIPAK DESSAI

“For some, having infrastructure makes a city smart. But smart is not actually infrastructure-centric alone; a smart city will also include roundthe-clock electricity and water supply; the ecosystem, the science and the environment will all contribute towards making of a true smart city”

ou have been the Commissioner of the Corporation of the City of Panaji for two years now. How has been the experience and what lies ahead? There are so many things to do. There are many projects in the pipeline, including AMRUT; then we have the smart city project wherein we are currently working on the traffic plan. Although the local population is not too large, the influx of tourist is in lakhs, which is causing parking issues. Pay-and-Park system is already in place, but we need a better solution to the parking woes. Then we have the garbage-related problems. Panaji has the best garbage collection and disposal system in Goa and it is working well. But, there are some ‘black spots’. People from surrounding areas, like the village panchayats, often come and dump their garbage is what we refer to as black spots. In order to overcome that, we have started installing CCTV cameras, conducting awareness campaigns, etc. There are special squads who can track those who throw garbage, so that they could be caught and punished just enough to discipline them. Talking about AMRUT, we are implementing the provisions of the programme as approved by a high-level task committee. The plan on the smart city is already there, now we have to form the SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) because planing specific execution of Smart City can only be accomplished through SPV. What is your plan for waste disposal? Our main problem is not ordinary waste disposal, but bio-medical waste, and that is where the challenge lies. Now, for plastics and all other waste, we have tied up with different agencies who are already engaged in collection activities. But still we don’t have proper dumping site for a lot of waste, which poses a problem.

What are your views on cleaning of rivers and beaches? As far as cleaning of river goes, we have the Mandovi river close by. There work is going on in two phases and in a fast paced manner. These are happening with the collaboration of the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC). GSIDC is also the nodal agency in the projects of AMRUT and smart city. What are the new technologies adopted by the new government in terms of eGovernance and mGovernance? These concepts of technology or their adoption are not all that new for us. However, at times we have found those to be too time-consuming,

primarily because our staff is not equipped enough to adopt those in such a short span of time; further capacity building is required. So, I would say that when the expertise level is low, it won’t be proper to expect that the work culture goes entirely technology-driven. You cannot reach from zero to 100 all of a sudden. How would you define a Smart City? There are varied opinions regarding the concept of smart cities. For some, having infrastructure makes a city smart. But smart is not actually infrastructure-centric alone; a smart city will also include round-the-clock electricity and water supply; the ecosystem, the science and the environment will all contribute towards making of a true smart city. We should be ready for the climate change-related challenges. So, smart city should ideally encompass all these issues.

JUNE 2016 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW KARTHIK KASHYAP

Tech-Savvy Cops to Make

Smart Police Force

Goa being one of the top tourist destinations for both foreign and domestic tourists, the local administration has to make sure that the law and order is duly maintained and enforced. This calls for a tech-savvy and smart police force that can detect and act fast as a crime takes place. Police Superintendent (Crime) Karthik Kashyap, in an interaction with Manish Arora & Shambhudeep Hore of Elets News Network (ENN), speaks about the slew of measures that have already been taken and those in the pipeline

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KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW KARTHIK KASHYAP

“We are at a very critical stage of implementation of our Crime & Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) project. This project has been modified and personalised to suit our specific local requirements. We call it G-cops”

hat are some of the new technology initiatives undertaken by the Goa Police to curb crime? Right now, we are at a very critical stage of implementation of our Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) project. This project is very personalised, making it locally suitable for us. We call it G-cops. It’s a huge initiative. We have modified this project to suit our specific requirements. Under this, a lot of initiatives have been undertaken, which will help connect with the masses. The citizen portal, for example, is a unique initiative, which will help citizens get very useful services, like police verification certificates, which we plan to connect with the passport office as well as other organisations. Then we have the lost article recovery system. Anyone who has lost any item of value can come to us and lodge the report and immediately we will issue an acknowledgement certificate, so that they can use this acknowledgment to reclaim the lost article. If the article has any insurance tags, then it can be used to claim insurance without any hassle. As of now, the training aspect is being focused on. We are trying to train our officers and capacity building process is going on right now. Once this is over, we will have a clearer picture. Surely, by the end of this month, we will be going live with the G-cops initiative for sure. There were talks of revamp of your website, but many complaints were there that people were facing hassles. What is the position now? Yes, it was there, but then we revamped and refurbished the website. The entire website has been now

redesigned by our own cyber-crime department employees, and we did not employ any outside agency. Since Goa is a tourist destination, we keep on updating the particulars of our website from time to time. How is the social media presence of the Goa Police? Currently, the social media presence is negligible. But we have plans to outsource it to a private agency, which will take care of the entire management of the social media, so that more and more people can engage with us. Meanwhile, we have started an initiative called “Little Police”, the Facebook page of which gets updated from time to time.

What according to you is a smart city and what can be defined as an ideal Smart Policing? Going by the definition of the concept of smart policing offered by the Prime Minister, we are exactly moving in that direction. For now, our priority is to be tech savvy and to procure the technical knowhow from both hardware and software perspectives. We have set up a cyber lab, which is purely self-motivated and initiated. There we have installed all modern software and hardware related to cyber forensics. The police in big states have Naascom set labs. Compared to them, ours may be a smaller one, but we have made a beginning at least. We have the necessary tools, using which any case can be investigated in a scientific manner.

JUNE 2016 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW V SWAMINATHAN

New-Age Banking

for High-Tech Cities Cashless and technology-driven payment solutions will play a major role in the smart cities, V Swaminathan, Senior Executive Vice President, Kotak Mahindra Bank, tells Manish Arora of Elets News Network (ENN). In an interaction, he also talks about the Bankâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s various offerings in Goa

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KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW V SWAMINATHAN

“One of the critical features of smart cities is cashless and technology-driven payment solutions, which we are already offering. The Kotak Mahindra Bank stands committed to offer world-class banking solutions. We offer a variety of technologydriven products in a seamless manner with anytime, anywhere banking facility”

hat are your offerings in the State of Goa? The Kotak Mahindra Bank offers both traditional banking and digital banking services to government departments, local bodies and autonomous bodies in Goa, which helps various government departments implement e-Governance projects efficiently. Kotak Mahindra Bank’s main focus is on digital banking (particularly digital payments and receipts), as these will further help in optimising the resources spent on cash management and logistics, like municipal tax collections, traffic fines, utility payments and transfer of subsidies. These are just some of the examples where mandatory digital platform will prevent leakages and thereby help departments to introduce eGovernance smoothly. We also facilitate data management for autonomous bodies through a dedicated module and ensure that all the relevant information is available in a real time basis. As Panaji features in the second smart cities list of the Government of India, what all the Bank would offer to the new-age city setup? One of the critical features of smart cities is cashless and technology-driven payment solutions, which we are already offering. Our Bank stands committed to offer world-class banking solutions. We offer a variety of technology-driven products in a seamless manner with anytime, anywhere banking facility. mGovernance is an important element in the Digital India scheme of things. Please share about some of your mGovernance offerings. Mobile phone has become a crucial banking channel today, given its high penetration across the country. Many customers prefer using mobile apps for banking-related needs, which offer customers all services

in just a few clicks, that too with the luxury of doing it from anytime and anywhere. We are working with many local bodies across the country to help them provide all municipal services-related banking transactions via mobile apps. This will enable the civic bodies to engage with citizens in a more meaningful and productive way. How do you make your services more user-friendly? Most important requirement to make services user-friendly is to have more contact points, and smart banking primarily means more contact points with their banks than ever before. It’s an ability to offer a customised experience, finely tailored to suit the requirements of individuals, corporate, government bodies and various institutions. It also means integrating technology with every aspect of business to offer client satisfaction, drive operational efficiencies and create new business opportunities. Going one step further, we also offer Basic Savings Bank Deposit accounts, through which banks are trying to reach out to every citizen of the state, particularly EWS, who can now avail of facilities like ATM card, phone banking, cheque book, etc., free of cost and that too without any requirement of minimum balance in their account. Moreover, citizens who are using smart phones can avail of mobile banking and all other internet-related features frequently with the help of free Wi-Fi zones. To provide mobile banking services to customers in the remotest areas, we offer a mobile banking app by the name of “Kotak Bharat Banking”, which requires no Internet connectivity. The inclusive digital banking app is primarily targeted to benefit customers in the underbanked and un-banked regions, who can access its services in their preferred language.

JUNE 2016 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

SPECIAL INTERVIEW DR A K MANOCHA

Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation Ltd

Excellence on Track The average daily sale of train tickets through the IRCTC portal, which is the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s second-busiest with 3 crore registered users, is around 5.5 to 6 lakh. The portal has been able to book a record 14,904 tickets per minute, says Dr A K Manocha, Chairman & Managing Director, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), in an interview with Arpit Gupta of Elets News Network (ENN)

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SPECIAL INTERVIEW DR A K MANOCHA

H “It (IRCTC) manages the complete domestic ticket bookings for the Indian Railways, provides airline bookings, hotel bookings as well as other ancillary services for the passengers and is one of the key pillars for driving tourism in India”

ow would you define IRCTC as a service provider? IRCTC is India’s largest e-commerce and e-ticketing corporation and provides end-to-end travel solutions for domestic as well as international travellers. It manages the complete domestic ticket bookings for the Indian Railways, provides airline bookings, hotel bookings as well as other ancillary services for the passengers and is one of the key pillars for driving tourism in India. India, with its vast frontiers and overall cultural as well as historical diversity, offers international passengers a unique destination for holidaying, and IRCTC works as a catalyst in promoting tourism and thus contributing to the country’s economy. How has been the response of online booking of travel, hospitality, tourism and catering services through IRCTC? IRCTC is the largest travel website in the entire Asia-Pacific region in terms of transaction volume (15-18 million per month) and it is among the most visited sites in India. It provides a full range of travel, hospitality, tourism and

catering services to rail passengers. IRCTC user base currently stands at 4.25 crore with around 15,000 users being added every day. On a daily basis, IRCTC website gets around 15 crores hits and more than 30,000 bookings take place through the IRCTC mobile app. Internet ticketing through IRCTC website has progressively increased over the years and its share in the total reserved tickets has also increased. Today, 59 per cent of reserved tickets for the Indian Railways are booked online. Internet ticketing on IRCTC was started in year 2002 with 27 tickets on the first day, which has now increased to more than 13 lakh tickets booked in a single day (achieved on 01/04/2015). IRCTC clocked a turnover of Rs 1,140 crore in 2014-15, which is likely to increase to `1,500 crore in 201516. We expect 15-20 per cent growth in turnover for the next five years. The average daily sale of train tickets through the IRCTC portal, which is the world’s second busiest with 3 crore registered users, is around 5.5 to 6 lakh. It has registered a record 14,904 tickets per minute. We expect a significant rise in online ticket booking with the launch of e-wallet. We carried out online ticket booking at Taj Mahal in Agra and Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi. IRCTC has partnered with Oyo Rooms and ZoopIndia to offer hotels booking and eCatering services, respectively. How will it change the overall user experience? IRCTC has partnered with companies like Oyo rooms, ZoopIndia, Haldiram, Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Dabur etc., and we are affirmative that their appointment will help us provide a more memorable and indulging experience to our users. We have tied up with Oyo Rooms to offer comfortable rooms and a useful booking platform to rail travellers. We are committed to driving efficiencies and enhance our services through innovation. This partnership contributes another chapter to the successful

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SPECIAL INTERVIEW DR A K MANOCHA

“IRCTC is the largest travel website in the entire Asia-Pacific region in terms of transaction volume (15-18 million per month) and it is among the most visited sites in India. It provides a full range of travel, hospitality, tourism and catering services to rail passengers”

34 egov / egov.eletsonline.com / JUNE 2016

narrative of ‘Make in India’ initiatives and how tech-enabled solutions will power the next wave of innovation. We have made the necessary technology integrations and will be actively communicating about these newly available options through e-mailers and information on e-tickets, so that our travellers can explore and utilise these services. IRCTC-Oyo Rooms will offer about 45,000 hotel rooms. We have also partnered with ZoopIndia as one of our official food aggregator for ordering food during train journeys. We aim to reform the food catering in the Indian Railways by introducing advanced technologies and systems. Since we are always looking forward to offering our customers a delightful experience, appointing ZoopIndia as food aggregator is a step forward in the same direction. It has been our constant effort to broaden our e-catering facility, which would enable consumers to order from a variety of cuisine options. In the new age, we have to offer passengers with novel food options. We are booking almost 4,000 meals per day while it was just 60-70 meals just two months back before the budget was announced by Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu. It has grown up by almost 70 times. Our minister believes working on a digital platform, hence he has set a target of one lakh. For an ordinary caterer, serving one lakh meals is not an easy task. Serving hot meals in

the running trains is a very tough and challenging task, so we are looking for more vendors who can meet this challenge. Our e-catering website remains open round-the-clock and every month, and we are getting more and more empanelment. How many retiring rooms have been upgraded into executive lounges and which all cities are being targeted for this? We are already doing booking of retiring rooms at 500 locations and moving towards 1,500 retiring rooms through internet. IRCTC is also under process of opening executive lounges at railway stations which are of international standards. We have invited bids for 18 cities and the tender will be opening soon. Nine have already been tendered and three have already started working in New Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. We have launched executive lounges at Agra Cantt Station to provide airport lounge-like facilities to train passengers at an affordable rate. It has set a new precedent in rail travel, bringing together a bouquet of international standard facilities and services for the travellers. We will shortly launch more executive lounges at Vishakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Howrah, Varanasi, Lucknow, Kanpur and Jammu. Our classic and of course best model is at Katra, Vaishno Devi.

SPECIAL INTERVIEW DR A K MANOCHA

Our super luxury train, Maharajas’ Express, is rated among top five most luxurious trains in the world. What is the current status of IRCTC’s e-ticketing through mobile apps on Android and iOS, and your proposed ticketing solution for Air India? Our mobile app is hugely popular. On existing website, we get large number of reservations, but since we are moving towards new generation technology at CRIS website, we will be introducing our upgraded new-generation Androidbased rail ticketing app around Julyend this year. It will be much faster. We

are in touch with CRIS. A lot of issues have been resolved and we hope that we should be able to launch Android app. Another 80 per cent people, who have been waiting for the new Android app, will be able to access it by July. We will also be introducing a dedicated app for airline bookings soon. As far as our alliance with Air India is concerned, we will soon sign a comprehensive MoU. Air India will sell IRCTC’s tickets abroad and also tourist packages. On our part, we will sell air tickets and make hotel bookings for Air India and others. The Indian Railways is planning to provide video conferencing facility at railway stations. What is the plan? Information Technology brings synergy. It cuts across various barriers. We are toying with an idea of having video conferencing facility at railway stations.

We are working on it. It will help give a boost to medical tourism, tele-consultation etc. A patient could come to railway station and have a video conference with the doctors available in the hospital. The Railways Minister has already announced that people can be trained at stations. Railways stations are islands of excellence at many places. Some of the positive features are round-theclock cleanliness and light, security, availability of manpower, etc. IRCTC will allow NRIs to book e-tickets using international credit and debit cards issued outside the country. How will this step benefit the Indian Railways? IRCTC has taken one more giant step in making it convenient for the international travelers to book tickets using their international credit and debit cards issued outside the country. For booking of rail tickets by international travellers, IRCTC will accept just any international credit or debit card at its portal through payment gateway provided by Atom Technologies. Atom has deployed a robust technology and world class fraud protection mechanism and our technology team has made necessary changes, in collaboration with them, to enable such transactions. At present, only American Express international credit cards are accepted at the IRCTC portal. This facility will benefit 3.56 lakh registered international users and NRIs, who want to book tickets for themselves or for their family members in India. Initially, this facility will not be applicable to Tatkal and premium train tickets. When will the IRCTC-Pawan Hans tie-up become operational? The tie-up with Pawan Hans will be operational by next month for helicopter ride for Mumbai. IRCTC will sell tickets for this. Pawan Hans will soon launch a ride between Chandigarh and Shimla and also in the Northeastern States, apart from rides to Amarnath and Kedarnath.

“Our mobile app is hugely popular. On existing website, we get a large number of reservations, but since we are moving towards new generation technology at CRIS website, we will be introducing our upgraded newgeneration Androidbased rail ticketing app around July-end this year”

JUNE 2016 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

SPECIAL INTERVIEW DR OMKAR RAI

STPI on a Mission to Promote

IT/ITeS/ESDM Sector in Goa STPI and Department of IT, Government of Goa have signed an MoU for promotion of IT/ITeS/ESDM sector in the state, says Dr Omkar Rai, Director General, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) in Conversation with Souvik Goswami of Elets News Network (ENN)

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SPECIAL INTERVIEW DR OMKAR RAI

“IT/ITeS Industry has reached a level where we can be proud of. This is the time when we have to reap the benefits and work collaboratively with the Government, Industry and the Academia, so that the country can be transitioned from a service to a product nation.”

ive us an overview of STPI. Way back in 1991, the Software Technology Parks of India was established and registered as an autonomous society under the Societies Registration Act 1860, under the then Department of Electronics (the present Department of Electronics & Information Technology or DeitY), Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India. STPI was created as a nodal agency to promote software development, hardware manufacturing and export of both. STPI has been providing statutory services under a “single window clearance” mechanism from various STPI centres spread across the country right since its inception. STPI was also entrusted to provide the IT industry with incubation support and Internet bandwidth support.

Shed some light on the IT export scenario in India with the help of STPI. STPI, through administration of Software Technology Park (STP)/ Electronic Hardware Technology Park (EHTP) scheme, provisioning of High Speed Data Communication and incubation support to the software exporters, has played a seminal role in the phenomenal growth of IT & ITES sector. STPI has come a long way and become highly successful in its mission as a catalyst in positioning India as the most preferred destination for outsourcing IT and IT-enabled services. A fact that is aptly proven by the stupendous growth in IT exports, from `52 crore in 1992-93 to a staggering `308,392 crore (tentative) in 2015-16, which represents more than 50 per cent share in national IT exports.

It was licensed to provide bandwidth services to the IT exporters and the IT industry as a whole. Therefore, each STPI centre became an international satellite gateway, offering Internet bandwidth to the IT industry. So, basically, apart from being a single-window support and clearance authority for IT exports, we were also into infrastructure and other necessary support to the IT industry. STPI also promotes secondary and tertiary locations in the country by establishing STP facilities in such places in order to extend the coverage of the STP/EHTP scheme and dispersal of the IT/ITeS/ESDM industry beyond metros for all inclusive growth of the sector.

How do you foresee the growth of Indian IT Industry? I would say that IT/ITeS Industry has reached a level where we can be proud of. This is the time when we have to reap the benefits and work collaboratively with the Government, Industry and the Academia, so that the country can be transitioned from a service to a product nation. I would also like to mention that for all inclusive and stable growth, demographic shifts are required and it is the need of hour. The Government of India, through its Make in India, Digital India, Atal Innovation Mission and Startup India initiatives, is focusing on creation of indigenous products and digitally-empowered

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SPECIAL INTERVIEW DR OMKAR RAI

society. We are confident that due to these initiatives, IT Industry will also achieve unprecedented growth in times to come.

“For all-inclusive and stable growth, demographic shifts are required and it is the need of hour. The Government of India, through its Make in India, Digital India, Atal Innovation Mission and Startup India initiatives, is focusing on creation of indigenous products and digitallyempowered society” 38 egov / egov.eletsonline.com / JUNE 2016

The Government of India has launched India BPO Promotion Scheme. What impact will it create in the near future? Indian software and BPO industries have earned brand equity globally and are the largest urban job creator in the country. The sector contributed around 9.3 per cent to the GDP. The growth of the sector has been centred around metro cities so far. In order to create approximately 1.5 lakh job opportunities and to further propel the growth of IT-BPO industry, especially MSMEs and start-ups in smaller cities/muffassil towns, the Department of Electronics & IT (DeitY), Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India has notified the “India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS)” under the Digital India programme. The scheme provides financial support in the form of Viability Gap Funding to eligible companies, with the following objectives: l Creation of employment opportunities for the youth, by promoting the IT/ITES Industry particularly by setting up the

BPO/ITES operations in Smaller Cities/ Muffassil Towns. l Promotion of lot of investment in IT/ITES sector in order to expand the base of IT industry and secure balanced regional growth. This scheme would ensure substantial investment and would have a multiplier effect on the economy in times to come. What is STPI’s plan for the State of Goa? STPI and the Department of IT, Government of Goa have signed an MoU on 2nd May 2016 for promotion of IT/ITeS/ESDM sector in the State. Further, STPI is setting up its centre in Udyog Bhawan, Panjim, Goa for providing single-window services and infrastructural support to the IT/ITeS Industry, especially startups and SMEs of Goa. STPI is also planning for creation of a state-of-the-art facility in the upcoming IT Park at Kadamba Plateau, Chimbel Village, Tiswadi Taluka, Goa, which has been approved in principle by the State Government. Apart from this, for promotion of innovation, R&D and IPR creation in IT/ESDM sector, STPI, along with the Government of Goa, is planning to set up ESDM incubation centre in the State.

KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW GYANESH PANDEY Model of the SS Block-Safdarjung Hospital being developed with consultancy from HSCC (India) Ltd

HSCC, Govt Join Hands for

World-Class Health Infrastructure in Goa The Government of Goa is trying its best to build up a world-class hospital facility and we are part of that process, says Gyanesh Pandey, Chairman & Managing Director, HSCC (India) Ltd, in an interaction with Souvik Goswami of Elets News Network (ENN)

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KE-GOA SPECIAL INTERVIEW GYANESH PANDEY

hat has been the extent of expansion of HSCC (India) Ltd in the recent past and what role has IT has played in it? We have been expanding our organisation in various areas in the recent years. We started off with the expansion of the maintenance field of the hospitals. Then we went for the expansion of our human resource segment for specialised service areas, like waste management, operation theatres, ICU, etc. Now we are carrying out these specialised activities using state-of-the-art techniques. The biggest expansion we have done in last three years is in the field of IT. Technology is now an integral part of the overall healthcare project. OPD in AIIMS in New Delhi is an example of this. Entire crowd management is being done there with the help of IT. At present, we are engaged with 25 large hospitals, including the redevelopment project of the Safdarjung Hospital, and

“Effective education and healthcare will be important elements of a smart city. According to me, we should create a (healthcare) system where we can ensure that any symptom in a human body can be recorded in a nearby hospital in a smarter city…”

in all these projects IT is playing a pivotal role. In Safdarjung Hospital, 1,300 new beds have been added and the Super Specialty and Emergency Blocks run completely on paperless system. Soon, Radio Information Detection System will be implemented at the Safdarjung Hospital. It means a band will be given to a patient to track his movement. This will help us in tracking any object moving within a hospital. In next six months, this will be implemented. It is going to be replicated in other hospitals also in coming years. We have also proposed to connect AIIMS and Safdarjung Hospital through IT. That way, we have made effective expansion in the last three-four years and in that expansion, IT has played an important part.

healthcare system in smart cities. A smart hospital in a smart city should be ready with complete records of any patient since the moment he/she steps into the hospital. That for me is the true Smart Healthcare System.

Shed some light on Biosafety Level Labs, which all are being made by HSCC. We are also making expansions in the area of Biosafety Level (BSL) Labs. There are four types of BSL labs. BSL-3 Lab which is a highly sophisticated lab deals with known viruses, but BSL-4 Lab deals with unknown viruses, which is the most sophisticated and most dificult to make. The HSCC (India) Ltd is the only organisation in India, which has made BSL-4 Lab in the country. It requires highly specialised technique. We will be making more and more BSL-4 Labs. It required huge investment, too. We are also expanding in terms of specialised manpower.

Can you brief us about the HSCC’s international operations? We have completed projects in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Bhutan. These are the neighboring countries of India, where we are focusing in terms of providing quality healthcare infrastructure. We feel that the hospitals being made in Sri Lanka and Nepal are going to be one of the best that India is providing them through HSCC. We would also like to enter European and the US markets. We will definitely try to design some of Indian healthcare systems, which are not available there, like Yoga centers, Ayush, Homeopathy centers, etc.

What is your take on the importance of Smart Healthcare for smart cities? It is very important and I think, IoT is going to play a major role in a smart city ecosystem. Effective education and healthcare will be important elements of a smart city. According to me, we should create a (healthcare) system where we can ensure that any symptom in a human body can be recorded in a nearby hospital in a smarter city…and IoT will be the tool to see this happen. This will be the differentiator between a general healthcare system and a smart

What is the significance of Goa for HSCC’s expansion in the coming years? Goa is an international tourist destination. Many people from the world over visit this place. So, Goa needs more and more world-class hospital facilities. HSCC will be building a super specialty hospital with the help of both Government of India and Government of Goa. The Goa Government is trying its best to build a world-class hospital facility, and we are part of it.

As the Chairman & Managing Director of HSCC (India) Ltd, where do you want to see your organisation in the next 10 years? I want HSCC to build a hospital which is unique in true sense. A hospital equipped with technology that can address the problems of patients the moment they enter the hospital. Apart from that, HSCC should be one of the largest consultants in the world in terms of providing quality delivery. We are working hard to that end. I want to see HSSC as the world’s largest healthcare consultant.

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Awards

empowering e-Governance

2008 – 2009 Award of Excellence in Project Category – G2G & G2C, Prison Monitoring System 2009 – 2010 Special Jury Award in Department Category, Prisons Department 2009 – 2010 Award of Excellence in Department Category, Directorate of Settlement & Land Records 2011 – 2012 Award of Excellence in Project Category – G2G, Poll Monitoring System 2012 – 2013 Award of Appreciation for Scheme Management Framework 2012 – 2013 Geospatial World Excellence Award, Directorate of Settlement & Land Records

Head Office

Software Development Centre

Goa Electronics Limited (GEL)

Ground floor, Shramshakti Bhavan

Mezzanine Floor, EDC House,

EDC Complex, patto Plaza,

Dr. Dada Vaidya Road,

Panaji, Goa - 403001

Website: www.goaelectronics.co.in

Email: info@goaelectronics.co.in

Some of the Major Projects of Goa Electronics Limited

eâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Agri

PRISMS

PRISMS is a prison & management system that provides information on incarcerated adults and juveniles. The applications is used in all jails in Goa, Bangalore & Yerwada Jail.

nology based system to monitor and deliver its services efficiently to the prime stakeholder i.e. the Farmer.

Mines application includes issue of challans, keeps track

of production and payment done by a Mining Lease. This

project also manages all the records of the mining lease

e-Revenue

The Revenue Department, Government of Goa, uses this application for issuance of certificates like Residence, Caste, Income etc to the citizens. Recently village level service delivery of certificates is started using this application.

CPS

Dharnaksh is the first of its kind of implementa-

eâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Mines

eAgri provides complete tech-

Dharnaksh

tion in the country that provides online up-todate information about any land parcel in the State of Goa.

Concession

Pass System is a system for effortlessly generating and managing new passes and also renewal of passes for Kadamba

This Scheme is managed by using Scheme Management Framework from application till disbursement of the amount with SMS & web integration. The application identifies duplicate/bogus application and prevents further processing of such application.

ERMS

Electoral System

Roll

Management

(ERMS)

Software

PMS

covers the complete process of generating a Elec-

Griha Aadhar Scheme was introduced to address the problem of spiraling prices and to provide support to the

toral roll starting from the applications received in Form 6, 7, 8, 8A to the generation of Supplementary Roll to the integration to the Mother Roll. The application also generates EPIC.

housewives/homemakers from

The Tourism Enterprise

middle, lower middle and poor section of the society and also to help them maintain a for their families The scheme is

managed

using

Scheme

Management Framework

name indicates is a system that facilitates efficient monitoring of the polls on the poll day. All the

polling

and school management

the RFC helps in move-

by through internet.

applications

online with total transparency at every level for registration and renewals of the tourist trade activities carried out across the state of Goa.

eâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Vidyalaya

are

connected to the central serve

DSSS

The scheme is managed by GEL completely

e-Vidyalaya is a student

booths

software implemented at ment

reasonable standard of living

Poll Monitoring System as the

system that facilitates storage & retrieval of informa-

tion on students and schools. Currently used on pilot basis in Goa University For more details visit www.goaelectronics.co.in

su ppo rte d

and w ith

has

been

S che me

Management Framework linked with SMS & Call Centre

CORPORATE

RAFIQ OMANI OMANI ANSYS/RAFIQ

ENGINEERING SIMULATIONS

MADE EASY With a global presence in over 75 strategic sales locations and a stupendous presence in over 40 countries, ANSYS helps global companies across industries solve their most complex design challenges, and launch innovative and cost-effective products, says Rafiq Somani, Country Manager India, Asean & ANZ, ANSYS, in an interaction with Arpit Gupta of Elets News Network (ENN)

How engineering simulation software solutions benefit various industrial sectors, along with IoT solutions provided by ANSYS?

Engineering simulation is used in many industries such as Aerospace, Oil & Gas, and Automotive to reduce costs and

44 egov / egov.eletsonline.com / June 2016

improve time to market by predicting how product designs are likely to perform in real world conditions. As a leading provider of engineering simulation solutions, ANSYS helps global companies across industries solve their most complex design challenges,

ANSYS/RAFIQ RAFIQ OMANI OMANICORPORATE CORPORATE

and launch innovative products cost effectively. Our comprehensive solutions leverage High Performance Computing (HPC) technology to enable customers to carry out larger, more detailed, and more accurate simulations using multiprocessor computers. By combining scalability, superior multi-physics foundation, and dynamic architecture, our offerings deliver efficiency, drive innovation, and reduce physical constraints. This helps our customers develop next generation products such as aircrafts, space vehicles, electric vehicles, complex electronics, and cutting edge technologies including unmanned systems. In addition, physicsbased simulation combined with big data analytics, industrial devices, and embedded intelligence, enables our customers to reduce risks and unplanned downtime while accelerating new product development.

How has ANSYS changed the portfolio of technologies it offers to the customers in order to adapt to the IT landscape that is shifting dramatically?

“Our comprehensive solutions leverage High Performance Computing (HPC) technology to enable customers to carry out larger, more detailed, and more accurate simulations using multiprocessor computers”

We focus on superior customer engagement by driving innovation, and enabling businesses to create robust and reliable products. Irrespective of the size of their business, many of our customers today are moving towards cloud computing, IoT, and Big Data. Gartner, Inc. forecasts that 6.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2016, up 30 percent from 2015, and that the number will reach 20.8 billion by 2020. A survey by RightScale, a cloud vendor, reveals that hybrid cloud adoption has increased significantly – up from 58 to 71 per cent. Given these trends, we have launched a subscription-based pricing model for our simulation software in order to optimize licenses, and enhance flexibility and value for our customers. ANSYS Elastic Licensing is the first engineering simulation software that provides hourly-based access to the breadth of ANSYS’ world-class multiphysics platform in a single license. Elastic licenses offer multiple benefits-

they promote flexibility across the full portfolio of simulation products, allowing adjustments for peak usage. They are also beneficial for ad-hoc development teams focused on short-term projects. Using this model, companies like ARM are able to accelerate designing of smarter and faster chips for electronic devices. Recently, we also signed an agreement to collaborate with GE Power Engineering to pilot “simulation as a service”. These agreements bear testimony to our goal of helping our clients adopt emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) by providing them with a diverse array of choices across licensing and deployment.

How is ANSYS participating in the digital initiatives of the Government of India?

We are currently involved with a number of digital initiatives launched by the Government of India. We strongly believe that innovation is a key ingredient for these initiatives to truly succeed–this includes innovation in terms of processes, practices, technology, equipment and materials. Make in India: Manufacturing businesses can drive innovation and maintain their competitive edge only by compressing their product design cycles and bringing products faster to market. Given costs associated with time and resources, it is imperative to adopt virtual product development and prototyping or ‘Simulation-Driven Product Development’. The automotive sector is witnessing new product variations in as little as 20 days, while the aerospace and Defence sectors are seeing increasing product complexity and shorter delivery times. This is also true of several other industries. We are quite excited about the “Make in India” initiative and the possibilities that it has opened up for us. We are looking forward to partnering with companies through this initiative and helping them lower development time and costs, reduce time to market, optimize product performance and help them

June 2016 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

CORPORATE

RAFIQ OMANI

EXPANSION PLAN ANSYS currently has six offices across India, a global presence in more than 75 strategic sales locations, and a network of channel partners across more than 40 countries. Over the last few years, the company has made significant acquisitions, and added several partners as well as sales and support staff. It will continue to invest to better serve their customers and help them augment their product lineup. outperform competition using simulation tools from ANSYS. Skill India: While India graduates 1.5 million engineers every year, only a very small percentage of them are employable, making training an urgent imperative. Skill India is a critical initiative from the government that will play a pivotal role in creating structures and mechanisms to nurture youngsters, and empower training institutions. We have developed a number of creative approaches to train the next generation of engineers through project sponsorships, student competitions,

46 egov / egov.eletsonline.com / June 2016

and hands-on programmes such as our own Authorised Training Center (ATC). Skill training is an important element of ANSYS culture as R&D is extremely important for all our products. We have centers in Pune, Noida and Bangalore and our R&D operations in India are the second largest for the company, outside the US. Startup India, Stand up India: This initiative aims to boost employment generation and wealth creation. As a part of this initiative, we have established academic partnerships with IITs as well as reputed universities and engineering colleges throughout India. We are closely involved with IIT Chennaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Incubation Cell-IITMIC, and Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), IIT Mumbaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Incubation Centre. We offer sponsorships for engineering academic projects and also are key sponsors for SAE BAJA and SAE SUPRA competitions.

How do you view India as a market for ANSYS as an end-toend engineering and technology solutions provider?

India is a fast growing, critical market for ANSYS. We have a good presence in several industries in India including Automotive, Aerospace & Defense, Oil & Gas, Energy, Electronics, and Education. Demand for simulation is growing rapidly within Asia. Asia revenues contribute just under 30 per cent to the overall revenue of the company, out of which India contributes its part. We serve our customers through our sales offices located across the country and constantly endeavor to give our customers 360-degree solutions that bring people, products and processes together. Engineering simulation helps companies beat the competition and bring out products faster in the competitive market. By the end of the decade, it is estimated that every engineer will use simulation as part of his daily routine.

200+ 27

50+

100+

KESC O SELVA KUMARI J

From Powerless to Powerful Turnaround

Story of KESCo

‘KESCo is working towards ensuring steady supply of power so that Kanpur is able to regain its former glory,’ says Selva Kumari J, Managing Director, Kanpur Electricity Supply Company Limited (KESCo) in conversation with Kartik Sharma of Elets News Network (ENN)

48 egov / egov.eletsonline.com / JUNE 2016

KESC O SELVA KUMARI J

“QPower is our new initiative to ensure quality of power supply to public. It includes IVRS and push-pull SMS-based outage management system”

hat are the challenges you faced in trying to turn around the company? There were few challenges. The support and acceptance of the team is most important for any initiative to be successful. The resistance to change is very high especially in government sector. Bringing on board the Kanpur Electricity Supply Company Limited (KESCo) team was the primary challenge. Secondly, the lengthy procedures in government processes which create problems for public. Power sector faces many challenges. Ensuring 24 hours supply and ensuring quality in delivery of service is a major hurdle. How did u tackle this? The main challenge in power sector is not the supply or the demand. It is collecting revenue for every single unit of electricity given to public. This is the only factor that will ensure stability in supply of power. As Uttar Pradesh is a energy-deficient state, electricity is purchased and supplied to public. Changing the mindset of people that they have to pay for every unit they use is the biggest test. Once people are on board, then it becomes easier. Due to better performance in revenue collection of KESCo, the Government of Uttar Pradesh has ensured 24 hours supply to Kanpur. Kanpur was once gloriously known as the “Manchester of India.” But due to steady decline in infrastructure over the years, the number of industries have declined and hence the former glory lost.

KESCo is working towards ensuring steady supply of power so that Kanpur is able to regain its former glory. Kanpur is not selected in the first list of the smart cities. What is your opinion on the power infrastructure for Kanpur, if and when it gets selected in the smart city list? Kanpur is not part of the first list of smart cities released. Sooner than later, its turn will come. So KESCo is gearing up in making the basic infrastructure better in the power sector. R-APDRP was not implemented in Kanpur. So Kanpur has not had its share of funds and spending over many years. But with the help of State Government providing funds in the form of business plans and also with coming up of Central Government scheme like IPDS, we are very positive that Kanpur will become a smart city in terms of electricity even before it becomes part of the list. Can you list some of the new IT and other initiatives that you have started in KESCo? New real time, GPS-based OCR billing software and new billing application mPower has been launched with cloud servers. New softwares for monitoring of supply position, raids conducted, Trust-based billing, Mapping of consumers, Tatkal system for new connections, digitisation of assets, integrated management system for better grievance redressal and manpower management, financial inclusion planning by including new modes of bill payment and widespread use of social media as tools to connect with people, energy efficient bulbs and fan distribution in collaboration with EESL, use of greener technologies like solar roof top (KESCO has made its own roof and collection centers solar to motivate public to take up solar), usage of greener CNG vehicles, high-tech lab for ensuring

quality of goods, etc, to name a few are some of the initiatives launched and under progress at KESCo. What are the future plans? Our future plans include going in for turn-up based billing. DSM by involving public to more energy efficient use of electricity, energy audit by technical automation like use of SCADA and smart meter technology are planned and are in implementation stage. All these are based on widespread use of IT to bring governance closer to people. Can you elaborate on QPower? QPower is our new initiative to ensure quality of power supply to public. It includes IVRS and pushpull SMS-based outage management system which also includes grievance redressal and manpower management. For example, it categorises outages as planned and unplanned and in both cases an automatic SMS shoots up to the consumer. In addition to this, consumer can check status of power supply, his billing status and complaint status using IVRS and push and pull SMS-based software QPower. In case of any complaint, automatic instructions are sent to the workmen and teams regarding the location through GPS and disposal is monitored online. The system is so simple that if any consumer feeds consumer number along with code of complaint, categorisation and automatic information is pushed to him/her. Another significant feature is that of Feeder and DT meter monitoring. Since our consumer data is mapped to GPS and coded feeder wise, if there is any feeder overload, an automatic SMS shoots up to the consumer requesting him to shut down unwanted appliance which are wastefully consuming electricity. This approach will involve consumers to participate in energy efficiency and Demand Side Management.

JUNE 2016 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

POWER

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EVENT REPORT SMART CITY CONCLAVE JABALPUR

Tony S Jun, Project Advisor, Overseas Project Development, Seoul Urban Solution Agency, South Korea, in a meeting with CEO-SPV (Jabalpur) Gajendra Singh Nagesh.

Smart Brains Discuss

Jabalpur Smart City ? Gautam Debroy

ountries with an edge in the Smart City domain, including South Korea, Germany and Singapore, have assured full support and cooperation in implementing the smart city projects in Jabalpur. Third-largest city in the State of Madhya Pradesh, Jabalpur achieved the distinction of featuring at the 7th position in the Government of Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first list of 20 cities to be developed into smart cities. On 26th May 2016, the city had an opportunity to witness and listen to the smart city domain experts. The Smart City Conclave-Jabalpur, organised by Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd and co-hosted by Jabalpur Smart City Pvt Ltd, saw the participation of smart city

52 egov / egov.eletsonline.com / JUNE 2016

experts from India and abroad, foreign delegates, government officials and private stakeholders. A detailed discussion and deliberations on the opportunities and challenges in making Jabalpur a smart city was the highlight of the event. Separate deliberations also took place on the Garment and Tourism sector of Jabalpur. The local administration in Jabalpur has also been giving much attention to the promotion and making Jabalpur a Tourism and Garment hub. Jabalpur has witnessed a phenomenal growth in garment manufacturing during the past decade. At present, more than 50,000 skilled workers are employed in this sector. The sector can be given further boost by developing forward and

12 February 2016 Bengaluru, Karnataka

4th

EVENT REPORT SMART CITY CONCLAVE JABALPUR

backward linkages using IT solutions. In this context, the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has played a crucial role by extending its help in grooming the local manpower into a skilled workforce. “We are ready to work in association with the Jabalpur Municipal Corporation,” said Jaikant Singh, Head, Partnership & State Alliance of NSDC, speaking on the occasion. The day-long event held in Hotel Gulzar had six different sessions to explore the opportunities and challenges of raising a smart city. Inaugurated by Jabalpur Mayor Dr Swati Sadanand Godbole, the event also had the presence of Padma Bhushan awardee and Founder of Sulabh International Dr Bindeswar Pathak. Godbole, in her speech, appealed to the smart city experts and investors to come to Jabalpur. “Our administration will extend all possible help to the people coming to Jabalpur. Let’s join hands to make Jabalpur a real smart city,” she said. Highlighting the issue of hygiene, Dr Bindeshwar Pathak in his remarks said open defecation should be stopped completely. He also informed about the efforts being made by the Sulabh International in the field of sanitation. Sulabh has the technique to purify water at Rs 1 per litre and can use the same for drinking purpose, Dr Pathak informed. The Padma Bhusan awardee also shed light on cultural values and cleanliness Sulabh teaches its students at Sulabh International schools. He assured of all required support, if such an initiative is undertaken in the schools of Jabalpur. Sanjay Paranjape, who represented the German consortium at the event, said that Jabalpur has big potential for investment. “The German consortium would like to work in cooperation with the Jabalpur administration,” he said. The smart city experts present on the occasion said that Jabalpur can’t be made smart only by providing residential facilities or improving the same, but the city must have job opportunities, too. They were unanimous in their view that Jabalpur has immense potential to become a truly smart city.

54 egov / egov.eletsonline.com / JUNE 2016

Smart city experts at the Conclave felt that Jabalpur can’t be made smart only by providing residential facilities or improving the same, but the city must have job opportunities, too. They were unanimous in their view that Jabalpur has immense potential to become a truly smart city Sanjay Nagrekar, an NRI based in Hong Kong, said that he has computed the details about smart city in Dubai and Korea. “Facilities for overall development and uplift of living standards can give birth to many smart cities,” said Nagrekar. Piyush Tiwari, Director (Commercial & Marketing), India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC), said that all existing possibilities of tourism should be exploited to the fullest to develop tourism in Jabalpur. “Jabalpur has good tourism potential. We need to explore it in a strategic and planned manner,” said Tiwari. He emphasised that public places like railway stations, bus stands, hotels, etc., must have display boards giving information about tourists spots. Echoing the view, Principal Director, Natural Heritage Division of INTACH, Manu Bhatnagar, said Jabalpur has good natural heritage and it must be preserved. “We at INTACH would extend all possible efforts to protect and preserve the natural heritage of this beautiful city (Jabalpur),” said Bhatnagar. Experts speaking on the occasion expressed their views on the conservation of water bodies, greenery, development of religious tourism, public safety, pollution, education, medical and various techniques. Jabalpur Municipal Corporation Commissioner Ved Prakash, who is leading

the smart city mission in Jabalpur, said that the real stakeholders of development are the people of the city. “This event, we hope, would definitely give us a major push towards implementing the smart city project,” he said. Prakash emphasised the need to strengthen the public transport system of Jabalpur. “We are also trying to shift from motorised to non-motorised system of vehicles to make the city safe and environment friendly,” the Commissioner said. Dignitaries, including District Magistrate Mahesh Chandra Chowdhary, Superintendent of Police D Ashish, Sumit Chowdhury, Kiran Joshi, MLAs Susheel Tiwari and Ashok Rohani, JMC Chairperson Sumitra Balmeek, Mayor-in-Council members Kamlesh Agarwal, Shriram Shukla, Rekha Singh Thakur, Naveen Kumar and Ramesh Prajapati, among others graced the occasion. The success of the event could be gauged by the fact that a day after the conclave, smart city solution providers and investors had one-to-one in-camera meetings with Commissioner Ved Prakash and CEO-SPV (Jabalpur) Gajendra Singh Nagesh. “We are ready to provide our help in developing Jabalpur a smart city,” said Tony S. Jun, Project Advisor, Overseas Project Development, Seoul Urban Solution Agency, South Korea. The event organiser, Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd, is Asia’s premier institute dealing with eGovernance while taking ahead the Government of India’s Smart Cities Mission. “We have decided to organise similar conclaves in all the 100 cities in the near future. We don’t only organise conclaves, we also work as a facilitator between the government and private stakeholders in the domain of smart city,” said Dr Ravi Gupta, CEO, Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd. In line with its commitment, on June 10-11, Elets Technomedia is organising “Goa Knowledge Exchange” summit in Goa on the theme “Smart Cities in the Era of Digital India”. Similarly, on June 17-18, Elets Technomedia is organising “Smart City Summit” in association with the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation.

SUMMIT

Smart City Conclave-Jabalpur in News

58 egov / egov.eletsonline.com / JUNE 2016