Galvanizing IT To Build Smart Cities In India

- Onkar Sharma

At a time when India is on its way to start work on the 20 smart cities, it is important to underline the challenges and opportunities associated with them. Dataquest deliberated on this issue with its expert panel recently.

Is a ‘smart city’ an equivalent of the Utopian world, of which our ancestors have often spoken about through the tales of Rama and his ideal empire which never ran out of water and had enough food grains to feed everyone, and where the governance came automatically from loyal as well as happy citizens? If the experts are to be believed, a smart city is like an Utopian city or much closer to that. Is it really possible to create such cities in the modern day world where resources are drying up at an unimaginable pace? Majority of experts believe that the smart cities are possible and are the only way to sustain, though opinions on how to build smart cities are plenty. Present day technology is capable of making the fictional concept a reality.

INCHING CLOSER TO BECOME SMART

Dataquest decided to explore the possibilities for the smart cities in India through an expert panel from different streams. The panel discussion was organized to deliberate, discuss and outline the scope of smart cities in India, especially in the wake of the current government’s focus on smart cities.

“India is in desperate need of smart cities which can handle the growing population. The present day cities are unable to deal with the challenges that the growing population poses,” shares Rajesh Ramachandran, President & CTO, Rolta.