A smart city mission was introduced by the government two years back under which the Centre provides Rs 500 crore to each city over a period of five years for implementing various projects. Two years after the mission was introduced, cities have now started smartening up. Under this mission, the centre would manage CCTV based city surveillance, drone-based aerial surveillance, pan-city kiosks for municipal services including death and birth certificate registration, traffic signal violation system, automatic traffic management, parking lots, water and electricity supply. The command-and-control centres, which would cost the city between Rs 100 and Rs 500 crore, would have help lines to handhold citizens through all services.
The command-and-control centre is the first project being implemented across the smart cities. So far, all 20 cities, chosen in January 2016 after a meticulous all-India competition, have floated tenders for the centre. First off the blocks is Pune with its hi-tech command-and-control centre, which has been developed as the nerve centre for urban governance to centrally manage traffic, water and electricity supply, citizen feedback and emergency alert systems and provide CCTV-based city surveillance. Pune has planned the centre for not only effective city-level coordination but also as its citizen interface.
Pune and Nagpur would have fully functional command centres by the end of 2017. This would mean managing almost all municipal and city services centrally. Apart from Pune and Nagpur, three other cities which are in fairly advanced stages of command-control centre project roll out are Kakinada, Naya Raipur and Bhopal.
Bhopal’s control centre would be the most expensive at Rs 500 crore, but a unique aspect is that Bhopal is planning its centre in such a manner that it can be used by other cities as well.
All the command-and-control centres planned in the first batch of 20 cities would be functional by the end of the current financial year.