Hitachi, Siemens and CII to create pilot projects for ‘Smart Cities’

 The Dollar Business Bureau Under the Government of India (GoI)’s ‘Smart City’ initiative, a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between Hitachi India Limited, Siemens Ltd and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), on Tuesday. The MoU aimed at forming a working group in order to create pilot projects and further replicate them throughout the country for setting up 100 smart cities. Speaking at the meet, Amitabh Kant, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, GoI, opined that there are various challenges to develop urbanization in an innovative and systemic manner. While the cities occupy only 3% of the world’s geographical area, their contribution lies at around 80% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and two-thirds of global emissions, the Secretary informed. All the best practices available across the world towards proper management of water, public resources, public spaces and technology, among others, would be part of smart cities’ developmental concept in India. The government’s smart city initiative shall be driven by the technology driven companies, he added. The Secretary further expressed hope that much-awaited smart cities project would start from the next month, as the consultations with all the stakeholders in this regard, has been concluded. Meanwhile, Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII, said this initiative by technology driven companies like Hitachi and Siemens will enable the implementation of GoI’s vision to build 100 smart cities. The Union Urban Minister, M Venkaiah Naidu, was also quoted to have said that the prolonged consultations towards smart cities initiative have been finally concluded; all the necessary proposals required for the project implementation will be done within six months and the project will be into action from the next month onwards. Here, it is noteworthy to mention that the Government of the United States had extended its support to the Indian Government in building smart cities. To this effect, during first week of March 2015, city-wise Task Forces for drawing action plans towards the development of three Indian cities- Ajmer, Allahabad and Visakhapatnam, as smart cities, were set by the GoI. This move by the Union Urban Ministry was taken in view of the agreement that was made between the above mentioned State governments and the United States Trade Development Agency (USTDA).  

This article was published on March 17, 2015.