Smart Cities - Do you have the Big Picture?

Of late, there is a lot of talk of Smart Cities, Smart Communities, Smart Everything and the use of Internet of Things (IoT) in India. Most infrastructure developers, builders have projects announced which are smart.... from smart townships to smart buildings etc... Smart is the newest buzzword...

"Smart" is really not about just putting and integrating a few electronic tweeks and teasers in a residence or commercial building... Smart is integrating technology and technological tools in all aspects of planning, designing, construction and maintenance management of the constructed structure... Yup.. one can argue, of course technological tools are currently also been used in the designing aspect at least... but then there is need to an integrated approach... need for bringing all of it under roof and seeing the Big Picture as it will ultimately span out to be... In the long run, it really would be very beneficial commercially too...

Also many a times, when it comes to Smart Townships, there is a wanting need - to start at a very fundamental level of Town Planning and putting in a complete blueprint demarcating and plotting as to where the residential area, business area, roads and bylanes, railway connectivity, inter city metro / monorail connectivity are been proposed and integrated in the blueprint; how utilities, service providers, waste management, etc about be facilitated in the entire Smart City beforehand; in short there is need for a Master Town Plan and then on this Master Town Plan there is a need to in fact do capacity planning for the present and the future needs of the Smart City. When the Smart City is designed and laid out, there is a need to doadvanced planning optimization to ensure that the Smart City does not start decaying the moment the so called well laid Town plans are put in place.

So... in smart townships / cities if we do not have a Master Town Plan with all its planning and visualization (of course, there are technological tools that can facilitate that) then what we would be doing and really would end up is creating a receipt for disaster. Most of the time infrastructure companies have the land banks, they have the resources, but no Master Plan... they built as the need be and built as they think appropriate and that is what can spell disaster.

A Smart City needs - Smart Buildings, Smart Service Providers, Smart Electricity Meters, Smart Water Meters, Smart Traffic and Road Safety Management, Smart Waste Management, Smart Security...

Having said all this, the best part is in the execution... that is a very very critical piece of the success story!!