Companies eye the smart city pie

By Krishna Mukherjee

A smart city is definitely much more than the ICT deployed in it but at the same time there is no doubt that it is the ICT solutions that go into making of the city and turning it smart for its citizens making it livable. According to the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), the level of urbanization will reach 50 percent in India by 2039 from the current 31%. The government-led smart city initiatives will buttress IT companies to grow in the region, underpinned by intelligent networks.

According to Greyhound Research, the project opens up a huge opportunity for global technology firms and they have joined race to submit proposals to local governments, bid for projects and collaborate with real estate developers.

Related: India has the most ambitious smart city program 

“As per our conversation with IT vendors, companies like IBM and Cisco see global smart city business to be worth $3 trillion and believe that close to $6 billion of it is possible from India in the next five years itself,” says Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst and CEO at Greyhound Research. Echoing similar views, Aplak Ghosh, Principal Consultant, CMR, opines that the opportunities for enterprises are huge but as a smart city is not a state-driven concept, the center should push for it aggressively, soliciting RFPs (Request for Proposals) from different vendors.

Technology major Cisco’s journey in this space began back in February 2009, when the Smart+Connected Communities (S+CC) was unveiled. S+CC is a global program that envisions the use of network as the platform to transform physical communities to connected communities running on networked information.

Cisco has created an integrated platform that incorporates top technology, applications and business models to improve the way communities and cities are designed, built and run – from lighting to waste management, from parking and traffic services to safety and security. Recently, it joined hands with consumer durables maker Bajaj Electricals to jointly bid and participate in the smart city project.

As per the agreement, Cisco would provide the software applications and networking aspects such as routers and wireless applications while Bajaj will be in active services and fittings of radio frequency, video display, cameras and street lighting. Another ICT solutions provider Ericsson, which is working on such projects and developing cities like Stockholm, Dubai and Qatar among others has developed two-way communication in power solutions in smart grid, smart metering, etc. In order to provide uninterrupted power supply, various customer applications on power quality are also being envisaged.

Also Read: Telcos figure out ways to cash on smart cities

The company has developed a smart street lighting concept in collaboration with Phillips to save on power and connect the entire city. Similarly in the field of transport, Ericsson has developed CVC (Connected Vehicle Cloud) with Volvo and provides optimal driving efficiencies and other transport related services.

An important business proposition in the same sector is goods transport. It has also addressed this area by goods tracking and the solution is implemented with various shipping and fleet management companies for eg., Maersk.

According to Purushottamm Kaushik, Managing Director, Sales, Growth Verticals, Cisco India and SAARC, “The city of the future will be built on technologies like collaboration, video and data. Technology will be embedded into the city to deliver improved urban services like public safety and security, healthcare, intelligent buildings and green energy. With TelePresence in every home, the shift that a browser brought to the world of commerce through online business will be brought to the service industry through on demand services. The entire city will run on network information and offer citizen services.”

India’s attention is focused on the urbanization agenda that is divided in three parts—urban renewal of 500 cities, rejuvenation of heritage cities and the implementation of 100 greenfield and brownfield smart cities.

The government of India allocated Rs 7,600 crore for smart cities in the budget 2014-15. It has plans to create 100 smart cities, with modern satellite towns around existing cities. Tech Mahindra, which is working on smart city projects in London and Dubai, is using its experience to implement the smart city solutions within the Mahindra world city Jaipur.

“Some of the solutions like the energy management solutions, waste management solutions, water management solutions, car parking solutions, which we have implemented globally, are currently being deployed as pilot in Mahindra World City Jaipur,” says Rishi Mohan Bhatnagar, Vice President, Head Digital Enterprises Services, Tech Mahindra.

The Mahindra World City Jaipur will be built on a 3,000-acre tract of land, out of which, 2,000 acres would be utilized for the industrial area. “This is how we are gearing ourselves up to play a crucial role in a smart city project as an ICT company. From India perspective, where we have cities but not planned cities, we are contemplating how we can manage with our experience and bring some smartness into that. We are working on how can we bring in smart surveillance and security to the drainage, to the sewage, to the voice management,” he adds.

The Government of India has zeroed in on the state of Gujarat to develop the first two smart cities--GIFT City and Dholera SIR. The GIFT project or the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City has already attracted investments to the tune of Rs 8,500 crore.

“While people are planning for building smart cities elsewhere in India, we in Gujarat have already gone ahead and implemented the phase-I of the project. We already have sold land development rights to the tune of 12.6 million sq ft, attracting an investment of Rs 8,500 crore,” says Ramakant K Jha, director of Gujarat International Finance Tec-City Company Ltd (GIFTCL).

GIFTCL is a joint venture company between state-run Gujarat Urban Development Company (GUDCL) and a private firm Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) that operates and manages the project. Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise has entered into a working relationship with Newgen for Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) project in India. It will be providing communications and networking solutions for the project.

“Alcatel-Lucent will be addressing 4-5 components, within the smart city. The components are – unified communication, LAN and WAN requirements of a smart city, Wi-fi. We will see what kind of network a city is looking to build. How a smart city is conceptualized is one of the key things. We will look at contact centers within the smart city to address different needs and will not go the traditional way,” elaborates Sanjay Sapru, Head of Enterprise, South Asia, Alcatel Lucent.

According to EUROCITIES, the major ICT requirements for a smart city will be future internet services and technologies, because they will be at the core of the society. These include disruptive technologies such as Internet of Things, trust and security platforms and multimodal user interfaces. However, all these technologies require common platform and must be introduced at the right time.

Broadband and telecom company Verizon has started working towards creating a smart city test bed at our Innovation Center in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA, to showcase new innovative technologies, such as smart parking, traffic management, emergency response, smart street lighting and environmental solutions, including water and waste management, to address current and future needs of urban planners, CIOs and mayors.

“Additionally, we’ve built a tightly integrated ecosystem of M2M and wireless network technologies that can help in creating a smarter city. We are convinced that through these efforts and our comprehensive portfolio of technology solutions, we will be able to address a variety of specific challenges as well as help keep citizens safe as well as provide reliable and accessible solutions in real-time,” adds Harsh Marwah, Country Manager, Verizon Enterprise Solutions, India.

Bosch is connecting the virtual and physical worlds and driving the development of the Internet of Things and services. Today, the company already plays a leading role in the development and use of intelligent sensors. It is working on Monaco smart city 3.0, where it is helping the city of Monaco to become a connected city by providing the latest in urban mobility solutions.

Urban infrastructure and public services like public transport network, parking lot management, recycling and rubbish collection, and roadworks will be connected virtually, providing local residents with real-time information

. According to Jagjit Singh Arora, Director – Regional Sales, Red Hat, India, the company is using its vast ecosystem of partners to provide open source infrastructure solutions for smarter cities. We believe that open standards-based architecture with open source software will make it possible for smart cities to survive and thrive. Proprietary stacks have the potential to create lock-in and make it cost prohibitive for consumers and businesses to connect to utilities and citizen services in these smart cities.

“Security is another important area that any smart city would need in order to have proper functioning. Having strengths and long association with ICT industry, Ericsson has already addressed this area by developing various security solutions and implemented emergency response system along with civil warning video-surveillance and automated alerts, etc, says Nishant Batra, VP-Engagement Practices, Ericsson India.

Ericsson is working in these areas for developing cities like Stockholm, Dubai and Qatar.

The Grey Areas

There are always challenges when it comes to developing cities in different geographies. As CMR’s Ghosh points out, “New Delhi’s challenges are different from that of Babylonia which is why people at the Center should draw out the contours of the smart city project. Here, it is the ecosystem that has to grow in totality. We need to understand the correlation between different layers of people. The implementations need to take place incorporating geopolitical understanding, sociopolitical understanding, what are the challenges and how these challenges can be mitigated by deploying ICT.”

According to National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), the stride of migration from rural to urban cities from the existing 377 million will increase to 600 million people in 2031. This will give rise to the challenge of the government addressing the issue of giving better standard of living to the migrant populace.

Experts are of the view that while the biggest challenge is the existing state of many of the Class A& B cities. It is much easier to build a greenfield infrastructure than transforming the current infrastructure. “The challenges are more to do with legal, land use guidelines and technology challenges too. Upfront capital investment and attractive operating model is essential to get the eco system in place,” adds Pankaj Kitchlu, Service Provider - Systems Engineering Leader, India & SAARC, Juniper Networks.

In addition, experts say that there are a number of factors hindering adoption of smart city solutions. However, the main barrier to adopting such solutions is the complexity of how cities are operated, financed, regulated and planned. Smart cities, nonetheless, present an opportunity to integrate physical city infrastructures- from utilities, transportation, and real estate to city services.

India will need to plan for many more towns to accommodate the tens of crores of people who will move into cities. It will need immense resources to mobilize basic services such as water supply, sewage management, healthcare, education, affordable housing, private and public transportation and provisioning the requirements of commerce.

“Greater public and private participation is required in sectors such as railways, ports and power as India looks at investing $1 trillion in infrastructure over the next five years,” adds Kaushik.

Related: https://www.voicendata.com/trillion-dollar-smart-city-opportunity/

Related: 8 elements that make smart cities

Related: India has the most ambitious smart city program