What is a Smart City?

The first question is what is meant by a ‘smart city’. There is no universally accepted definition of a smart city. It means different things to different people. The conceptualization of Smart City, therefore, varies from city to city and country to country, depending on the level of development, willingness to change and reform, resources, and aspirations of the city residents.  A smart city would have a different connotation in India than, say, Europe. Even in India, there is no one way of defining a smart city. Some definitional boundaries are required to guide cities in the Mission. In the imagination of any city dweller in India, the picture of a smart city contains a wish list of infrastructure and services that describes his or her level of aspiration. To provide for the aspirations and needs of the citizens, urban planners ideally aim at developing the entire urban eco-system, which is represented by the four pillars of comprehensive development-institutional, physical, social and economic infrastructure. This can be a long-term goal and cities can work towards developing such comprehensive infrastructure incrementally, adding on layers of ‘smartness’. In the approach of the Smart Cities Mission, the objective is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment, and the application of ‘Smart’ Solutions. The focus is on sustainable and inclusive development and the idea is to look at compact areas and create a replicable model that will act as a lighthouse to other aspiring cities.

The Smart Cities Mission of the Government is a bold, new initiative. It is meant to set examples that can be replicated both within and outside the Smart City, catalyzing the creation of similar Smart Cities in various regions and parts of the country. The core infrastructure elements in a smart city would include:

1. adequate water supply,
2. assured electricity supply,

iii. sanitation, including solid waste management,

1. efficient urban mobility and public transport,
2. affordable housing, especially for the poor,
3. robust IT connectivity and digitalization,

vii. good governance, especially e-Governance and citizen participation,

viii. sustainable environment,

1. safety and security of citizens, particularly women, children, and the elderly, and
2. health and education.

As far as Smart Solutions are concerned, an illustrative list is given below. This is not, however, an exhaustive list, and cities are free to add more applications.

Accordingly, the purpose of the Smart Cities Mission is to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local area development and harnessing technology, especially technology that leads to Smart outcomes. Area-based development will transform existing areas (retrofit and redevelop), including slums, into better-planned ones, thereby improving the liveability of the whole City. New areas (greenfield) will be developed around cities in order to accommodate the expanding population in urban areas. Application of Smart Solutions will enable cities to use technology, information, and data to improve infrastructure and services. Comprehensive development in this way will improve quality of life, create employment, and enhance incomes for all, especially the poor and the disadvantaged, leading to inclusive Cities.

Smart City Mission

The Smart City Mission aims at driving economic growth and improving the quality of life of the people by enabling local government and harnessing technology as a means to create smart outcomes for citizens.

The bold initiative launched by Prime Minister Narendra  Modi in 2015 to improve the quality of life in rapidly expanding urban areas -

❑ Initially focused on developing 100 cities with state-of-the-art technology by 2022.

❑ Mission evolved to shift towards brownfield development and ‘making existing cities smart.

Cities plan initiatives at two levels: Area-based development (ABD) and Pan-city development.

Smart City Challenge

• The India Smart Cities Challenge is a competition for municipal leaders and their partners to promote economic opportunity in India, improve governance, and produce better results for residents.

• The First Round of the Smart City Challenge was held in 2015 and the top 20 cities belonging to 12 states were selected for funding in the financial year of 2015-16.

• The Second Round of the Smart City Challenge opened on April 1, 2016, and the participating cities submitted their revised proposals by 30 June 2016.

• A cap of 40 new cities was envisaged for the year 2016-17 as per the Mission guidelines. 27 cities are declared in this Round 2.

Smart City Guidelines 

View Smart City Guidelines

Annual Reports