One-Stop Geospatial Information Management System for Smart Cities

Overview

National Commission on Population (NCP) in India predicts that about 38.6% of Indians will live in urban areas in the next 15 years, that is, by 2036. Responding to the fast-increasing pressure on urban centres, the Government of India launched the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) in 2015. The mission aims to promote sustainable and inclusive cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to citizens, a clean and sustainable environment, and the application of Smart Solutions. 100 cities were selected to build an entire ecosystem of complete and integrated planning. This is being achieved through key strategic components, including:

y City improvement: Retrofitting y City renewal: Redevelopment y City Extension: Greenfield Development

The objectives are to be achieved either on an area-based development plan or via pan-city initiatives in which Smart Solutions are covering large parts of the city.

The Geospatial Management Information System (GMIS) is a web-based, spatially enabled management tool created with data from 100 cities, and 7000+ projects that create an extensive data repository of important mission-related data, introduce geospatial capabilities and create a single engagement and monitoring platform for all officials involved in Smart Cities Mission implementation. The application has the potential to open up new horizons for evidence-based planning, project monitoring, evaluation and policy formulation.

Vision: To provide better insights for Smart Cities Mission management, create an extensive data repository of important mission-related data, introduce geospatial capabilities, and create a single engagement and monitoring platform for all officials involved in Smart Cities Mission implementation.

Objectives

y Map all projects under the Smart Cities Mission and make it available in one place. y Provide a comprehensive progress view of the 100 Smart Cities. y Provide evidence-based monitoring of the Smart City projects. y Provide a seamless integration of mobile-based data collection, geo-enabled MIS, geospatial dashboards, and knowledge repository over one platform. y Facilitate knowledge sharing between the Smart Cities. y Enable monitoring of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) through Vendor Repository.

Stakeholders Involved

Esri India, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and 100 Smart Cities. Solution and Implementation Plan

The Geospatial Management Information System (GMIS) was formally launched in February 2021. The implementation plan involved the creation of the following modules in GMIS:

y Ranking Module: To track a city’s performance and benchmark other cities towards achieving the Smart City goals. y Smart City Performance Module: gives visibility to the rank movement. y Reports - Various reports can be generated for different cities on all ongoing projects, geo-tagged projects, updated projects, and active/inactive projects. y Vendor Repository Module: Provides a view of existing vendors and enables adding new vendors for different Smart City projects, providing transparency, ownership of projects and SLAs. y City Progress Module: Provides visibility to the physical progress of the projects in a city. y NIP (National Infrastructure Pipeline): Launched in August 2020, NIP is meant for augmenting India’s infrastructure by identifying key projects for investment.

Use of Geospatial Technologies

The GMIS web application developed on Esri’s ArcGIS system facilitates evidence-based monitoring of the Smart City projects. Photos of the projects are uploaded on GMIS using a mobile app, which is configured on ArcGIS Survey123. Authorized personnel have the necessary login and passwords to update the status of the projects from the ground. They conduct surveys via the survey app to update project details and images and geo-tag. The app is connected to the GMIS portal and synchronized with existing project IDs. This enhances the monitoring capabilities and transparency concerning all Smart Cities. GMIS enables monitoring of Smart Cities projects at the city, state and centre levels through geospatial dashboards providing details of the milestones achieved.