Last year, Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, announced the launch of the Smart City initiative which aims to bring about digitization and growth in India’s city infrastructure and logistics. Exactly a year later, Pune witnessed the launch of the 'Smart City Mission' from the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex.
The mission consists of various
projects, all of which aim at improving the city with regards to aspects such
as amenities, transport system, waste management, road conditions, recycling,
etc. The launch of The Lighthouse Project in Aundh is aimed at making citizens
smarter by providing skill training to youths of poor localities. Another
project aims at slum rehabilitation and works towards the replacement of the
slums with buildings, all of which will be fulfilling the norms of green
building. A street and pedestrian walkway in Aundh will involve PMC, traffic
police, utility service providers along with local residents and commercial
establishments.
While a lot of these projects will be
launched at a ground level and are aimed at improving or enhancing existing
systems, a big part of them involve the use of technology and innovation to see
the expected results. For ease of keeping track of PMPML commuters, the smart
city mission will be introducing a website and mobile app. All information
about the passengers opting for local commuting services will be available on
this app. Another facility in the pipeline which is soon going to be introduced
is the allotment of Common Mobility Cards for all passengers. This concept
involves the use of a card provided to all regular commuters. The bus conductor
will swipe it in an e-ticketing machine and the amount of his ticket will automatically
be deducted from the card. This facility will involve recharging the card to
have credit but will eliminate the hassle of exchanging cash every time a
passenger needs to buy a ticket.
Another area where the smart city
mission aims at providing convenience to the citizens using technology is the
traffic system. This project aims at using technology to address the planning
of the entire transport system. If executed as planned, it will ensure
sufficient availability of public transport in different areas as per the
actual demand. This will prove to be of great help to the commuters as well as
enhance the regulation of traffic on roads.A project that has the potential to
change the entire face of public transport in the city is the introduction of
modern buses, which are designed to be environment-friendly. The project will
be launched on a pilot basis at the initial stages to check if it will prove to
be a better option than the conventional buses which make use of fuel. The
buses would run on electric power. If the outcome is good, they would be
included in the fleet of PMPML buses.
Using rooftops of civic properties for
generating solar power is another project that has been proposed multiple times
in the past and is finally approved with the first project launched at the
Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics. The Pune International Centre
(PIC) is playing a major role in it and many private educational institutes are
looking to be a part of it too.
Taking care of waste management and
ensuring appropriate and timely disposal of the city's waste is another sector
in which implementation of various technological tools and devices is planned.
The first phase involves the installation of a GPS system on every
garbage-carrying-vehicle. This initiative is on the verge of completion and
will be reviewed after a few months to see if it had any positive effects. Once
that is taken care of, the second step will involve geo-tagging all the waste
bins with sensors to monitor details of garbage collection.
The Smart Cities Mission aims to bring
about major changes in the city's ecosystem and will see the launch of many
more projects in the years to come, depending on the changes witnessed from the
ones that are already launched. The use of new ideas and methods involved in it
makes it an exciting opportunity for technology providers to collaborate with
different bodies and enable the government's efforts through various public and
private partnerships.
