Smart Cities' Command Rooms Face Uncertainty

The Annual Operating Cost Of These Centres, Which Have Vast Networks Of Cameras, Sensors And Dashboards, Ranges From ₹2-3 Crore Per City

- Soumya Chatterjee

NEW DELHI: With the Smart Cities Mission — a flagship initiative launched by the Narendra Modi government in 2015 — coming to a close on March 31, the future of one of its most prominent features, the Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCCs), hangs in the balance.

The success of the mission, spread across 100 cities, has been mixed. But ICCCs — high-tech control rooms equipped with a network of cameras, sensors, and IoT devices — have emerged as a common and visible infrastructure backbone over the past five years. These nerve centres have played a key role in urban governance, enabling traffic monitoring, crime tracking, flood and disaster management, and public health response during the pandemic.

But now, with 7,545 projects completed at a cost of ₹1.51 lakh crore, a key challenge lies ahead: how will these control rooms continue to operate once central and state funding dries up — especially given the financial fragility of most municipal bodies?

Speaking to HT, senior officials across several states said that while the costs for running the ICCCs for the next three to five years have been budgeted under the Smart Cities Mission, officials admit there is no plan yet for what follows. In a meeting chaired by Union minister Manohar Lal Khattar on April 7, states and cities were asked to explore ways to sustain ICCCs through self-generated revenue.

The annual operating cost of these centres, which include vast networks of cameras, sensors, and analytics dashboards, typically ranges from ₹2-3 crore per city.

With most urban local bodies in poor financial health, many states are struggling to chart a clear path forward.