eGov-April-2011-[42-45]-Event-SmartCity 2011 Report

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Smart City 2011 report

Driving Forces Behind Smart Cities

Smart city via denizens’ feedback A key step towards building smart cities is to include citizens as stakeholders and participants and not as mere beneficiaries

(From L-R) Saugata Roy, Union Minister of State, Ministry of Urban Development; Dr Ravi Gupta, Editor-in-Chief, egov; Aruna Sundarajan, Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Housing and Poverty Alleviation; M P Narayanan, President, Centre for Science Development and Media Studies; Sanjeev Mital, CEO, National Institute for Smart Governance; Sameer Sharma, Minicipal Commissioner, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation; Tapas Ghatak,Former Director, Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority

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gov in collaboration with the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India (GoI) hosted the second edition of Smart City event on March 4th, 2011, in the Capital. The convention this year focused on the issues such as challenges faced to build sustainable smart cities with proper usage of resources and also saving up the non-renewable ones; how can technology be an effective enhancer and enabler for urban governance; challenges faced by municipal corporations and scope and need of municipal e-Governance. In his inaugural address, Saugata Roy, Union Minister of State, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India said that the uncontrolled population explosion is leading to creation of slums and worst conditions of living. To deal with this issue of rising slum

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and Singapore.” He talked about six dimensions of a smart city, which includes smart economy, smart mobility, smart environment, smart people, smart living and smart governance; and stressed upon the role and significance of information and communication technology in facilitating the same. Stating the objectives of Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), Aruna Sundarajan, Joint Secreatary, Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation said, “ With the help of JNNURM we have managed to bring to centre-stage the need for reforms; and several cities and states have enthusiastically gone ahead with the reform agenda.” She stressed upon housing as a main issue and also a growth sector. “There is also an increasing realisation in countries all over the world that housing is a huge growth multiplier,” Sundarajan said on the issues of housing and slums development in urban areas. Sanjiv Mittal, Director, National Institute for Smart Government spoke on the importance of planned development of cities so as to enable them to become urban centres of growth. Pointing out the need for a uniform national policy or framework for e-Governance projects, Mittal said, “If every city does e-Governance projects as an independent entity it will take a long time to reap its benefits.” “Can we take advantages of what has already been done in one city and take

six dimensions of smart city include smart economy, smart mobility, smart environment, smart people, smart living and smart governance Rajiv Awas Yojana was formulated. “Although this year, there has been little allocation for Rajiv Awas Yojana in the budget, next year we will have an allocation of `6,000 crore,” the minister stated. Speaking about the concept of smart cities he said, “The smart city infrastructure is an introductory step for establishing the overall smart city framework and architecture. Very few smart cities have recently been established in the world including Dubai, Malta, Kochi

it across?” he reasoned. Tapas Ghatak, Former Director- Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority, in his address proposed the Ministry of Urban Development release documentation of the ‘best and worst practices’ of JNNURM across states so that lessons are learnt and successful models reviewed by everyone. He conceded that citizens were not yet a part of the planning process and thus a key stakeholder is being missed out.


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