Page 30 - TT Magazine Aug-Sep 2018

SMART CITY

contribute to organisational development and operators: Traditionally, planners brownfield cities will would take much
and capacity building in initial years and and designers with lack of operational more time owing to their pre-existing
later as a resource centre. Centre also acts experience are involved in the structures and dynamics above all the
as facilitator for exchange of experience implementation of projects due to which mindset of stakeholders.
and communication at national and majority of projects either need re-work Resilience and Continuous Learning:
international level with urban researchers or under performance during the O&M Every city is different in its own way and
and civic administrators. phase resulting in very high life-cycle may pose different sets of challenges
Majority of the cities have planned cost. Integration between planners during different stages of the Project life-
for implementation of an ERP system to and operators at the design stage shall cycle. Despite all the efforts,things can
optimise of the resources and improve definitely provide a holistic approach to still go wrong, however administration
the efficiency of citizen service delivery. the asset development. shall be resilient and pull themselves
Innovation: Key areas where Public Resistance: It is a common and the project out of such crisis. This
innovation found its way include phenomenon these days to note was clearly demonstrated during the
design of urban infrastructure such that whether it is a policy or physical recent flood situation due to heavy
as streets and public parks, clean and infrastructure project everything is going rainfall in Bhubaneshwar where entire
green initiatives, delivery of municipal through a thorough public scrutiny and administration has come together along
services etc., Technological innovations either due to lack of understanding or with the other stakeholders to undertake
have also found its way into creating their inability to take a larger perspective. rescue operations and undertake course
smart solutions for public transport The reasons could be many ranging correction for a future occurrence.
services management i.e. vehicle from inadequate compensation to Entrepreneurial: Smart city
tracking and passenger information political motivation. At times the project management today is different from
system, smart street lighting, city conceptualisation may in itself have that has been done conventionally as
waste management using RFID sensors limitations or short comings. Whatever it throws unprecedented organizational
and Video management systems for the reason, these public outrages on and management challenges to its
City surveillance used to detection & developmental projects have been administrators and managers. Complex
prevention of crime. impacting their delivery and in turn combinations of factors such as
increasing their cost and reducing the technological advancements, adaptive
Challenges benefits at large. Hence it is essential policy-making, diverse and multiple
Program of this scale and complexity to engage the stakeholders through a stakeholder environment, need for
is bound to have its share of challenges comprehensive outreach program on all financial innovation etc. may lead to
which can be seen as opportunities to type of projects and at every stage and vicious or virtuous cycles in smart city
innovate and turnaround. seek a buy-in and also include caveats initiatives. This necessitate nurturing and
Capacity and Capability: Urban discouraging people from going to demonstrating the entrepreneurial spirit
governance is crippled with poor streets to seek justice or audience. respectively.
institutional set-up with inadequate Funding: Majority of the cities need an Performance Orientation: Majority of
capacity and also capability to deliver the infrastructure re-vamp and proposals are the projects have long gestation in terms
municipal services. With deployment of also skewed towards the same requiring of achieving projected outcomes which
technology including e-governance and huge capital for implementation. With necessitates that all the stakeholders stay
ERP, a mammoth effort is required in limited funding availability and their focussed and aligned. This also requires
capability upgrade of city administrators. allocation for implementation leaves none that their performance is measured and
Lack of buy-in from the administration or limited availability of funds for O&M managed from time to time to ensure
team to enhance its skillset and latching phase. Lack of funding during O&M may success.
on to the legacy systems has been and lead to inadequate maintenance resulting Citizen Connect: Most of the smart
shall continue to be a severe dampener in early failure of assets. Some of the early city projects have demonstrated that
to this transformational journey. projects are experiencing the same in the having citizen central to the delivery
Coordination – National, Regional mission are experiencing the same. of the municipal services have always
and Local: Several projects in the mission assured success. However, sustaining
are successfully deployed and are yielding Way Forward the same needs to ensure the framework
results at local level, lack of coordination Five guiding principles are proposed and processes are set in place to have
between national, regional and local which could guide the stakeholders a constant and continuous engagement
levels on different aspects of the mission in making this journey truly with citizen in a transparent way. While
shall be leading to different standards and transformational. it is important to engage with citizens
sub-optimal results in long run. Persistence: The large scale projects it is equally important to make them
Integration amongst planners will take time to complete especially accountable as well.

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