Selection of initial 20 cities for development as Smart Cities and then bringing about changes make them smart is critical as the country is eagerly looking forward to actual implementation of smart city projects, according to a senior consultant at Deloitte.

Reacting the Union Cabinet decision to push the Smart City programme, Arindam Guha, Senior Director, Deloitte in India, in a statement said, “While the importance of information and communication technology (ICT) solutions have been highlighted in most Smart City discussions, basic service delivery infrastructure like water and sanitation pipelines constitute the last mile linkage for providing smart services to citizens.”

Both the Smart City programme and the new Urban Renewal Mission, which is targeted at bridging service delivery infrastructure gaps, would need to work hand in hand to demonstrate benefits on the ground, he said.

The outlay of Rs 100 crore per city for the programme may appear to be on the lower side, but this could be supplemented by the State Government and the Corporation/Urban local body and the private sector. For private sector players to invest in this space, most cities would have to take a re-look at their tariff structure for urban services so that they not only recover the cost of service delivery but are also able to service these investments, he felt.

Given the initial outlay of Rs 2000 crore for the programme, it is necessary to innovate like hosting the back end ICT suite of applications on the cloud. This would not only reduce costs through sharing of hardware infrastructure but also fast track implementation, he said.

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