The current government has envisioned
having 100 Smart Cities across 21 States
within the next 5 years. The Cabinet has
approved Rs. 48,000 crore for the Smart
Cities Mission and Rs. 50,000 crore for the
Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban
Transformation (AMRUT) which involves
upgrading another 500 cities to the standard
of a Smart City.
Our team at Sterlite has done a
comprehensive study of the on-going
projects like Dholera, Naya Raipur
Development Authority (NRDA) and Vizag
which are still in the consultancy selection
phase and have importantly pointed out
several variations which would in turn affect
the development and operations in these
cities.
A smart city uses digital technologies such as
sensors and termed as Internet of Things; or
information and communication
technologies (ICT) like a 2G, 3G or Wi-Fi
network for example to transfer the data
received through the sensors to a Command
and Control Centre (CCC). The CCC uses the
data received for either record keeping or
completing a task or prevention of a mishap
thereby enhancing the quality and
performance of urban services such as water
and electricity supply, sanitation, waste
management, etc.; to reduce costs and
resource consumption through conversion
of waste to energy and fuel and to engage
more effectively and actively with its citizens
through e-governance, grievance redressal,
safety and security, etc
According to the findings of the study
conducted, in the current scenario, most of
the Request for Proposal's (RFQs) which
have been put out for enlisting consultants
for developing the architecture for these
cities have a lot of inconsistencies and varied
requirements even in small areas like
Utilities. The same applies to the rest of the
areas like public transport and security, smart
transport management, waste, energy,
healthcare, etc. as well. As a result, every
smart city, every Original Equipment
Manufacturer (OEM) and every consultant
today has a different functionality
understanding and hence the need of a
different ecosystem for final delivery. Thus as
of today, no smart city - not just in India, but
across the globe is completely defined or
standardized.
Sterlite's View of a Smart City Architecture
Most of the government and nodal
authorities in charge of the various Smart
Cities hire different consultancies. These
government or nodal authorities do not
have technical experts on board and most of
the consultants empanel an OEM to provide
for the requisite technical expertise to frame the structure and requirements. As a result,
most of the recommendations and
suggestions are more of what the OEMs area
of expertise is in rather than the best set of
what should be present in a Smart City.
Technology being used in the current
projects will be obsolete by the time the City
is operational according to the study been
done by our team. Need for a lot of
customization, implementation time and
operational issues due to replacement of old
and obsolete technology, cost overrun owing
to the absence of economies of scale due to
non-standard needs, synchronization of
various applications once they are upgraded
or substituted, are only some of the
challenges these cities will face on account of
the disjointed requirements in the main
architecture and planning of the city.
In addition to all of this, issuing of
certification from an external agency
certifying a Smart City also becomes a challenge as there are no set standards for a
Smart City and the minimum expected set
of function it performs. Also, once a few
cities come up with these arbitrary
requirements, in all likelihood the rest would
follow suit and this would ultimately lead to creation of cities which would not be very
different from the cities existing today in
which the government invests huge sums
of money but whose infrastructure cannot
be used anymore since it is impractical.
Our team at Sterlite hence stresses the
significance and urgency of using a defined
Blueprint Smart City Architecture so that
cities can emulate the same architecture
and build its own specific needs on top of it
and they has also begun working on how to
make this happen.
| Services |
Feature or Superset |
Scope |
| Energy |
Smart Grids |
Intelligent electricity network with computers and sensors. |
| |
Renewable Energy Sources in a Smart Grid |
| |
Self-healing smarter energy grids. |
| Smart meters/Smart Buildings |
Maps energy consumption of the user allows them to manage their energy needs |
| Smart Street Lighting |
Energy saving lamps that can be dimmed or switched during quite times of night. |
| Smart Plugs (Commercial/Residence) |
Automatically dims or switches unused appliances and
lights. |
| Smart Energy Displays |
Providing feedback on energy consumption and giving personal energy saving tips |
| Smart Transport Management |
Smart Parking |
Allows consumers to parking spaces in advance in public or private spaces. |
| The Digital Road Authority |
Monitors the traffic and free parking spaces for heavy vehicles saving their time and fuel. |
| Junction Electronic Eye (J-Eyes) |
Monitors the traffic condition at major signalised junctions |
| Electronic Regulatory Signs |
Display prohibited turning movements during specific time period. |
| Traffic Scan |
Provide motorists with information on the traffic condition. (Uses taxis as probes). |
| Parking Guidance System |
Provides real time information on parking spaces availability. |
| Transport monitoring system. |
|
The initial step involves the creation of a
Smart City Forum which should consist of
OEMs, System Integrators who are able to
provide end-to-end engineering solutions,
consultants and government bodies. Secondly
the forum should be tasked with the creation
of a Smart City Architecture Blueprint,
defining Smart Packs e.g. Smart Grid etc. and
defining a Superset of use case applications
under that pack (refer table above for
examples), defining Standard Operating
Procedures and defining the minimum set of
requirements meeting which a City can be
certified by a Standards body.
This provides a single platform for the
members to get together and discuss plans,
provide their inputs, analyse requirements
across various projects to deliver
cost-effective and viable solutions and as
well as voice their concerns so that there is
a shared rationale between them to enable
create the uniformity required for ensuring
setting up of successful Smart Cities.
To enable this standardization and bring
about these changes the company has
already started discussions with leading
OEMs to make them aware of the
expectations and the benefits of this
system. The idea of having such a forum has
found wide acceptability among many
players.
Vikram Singh Mains
 which involves upgrading another 500 cities to the standard of a Smart City. \n\n Our team at Sterlite has done a comprehensive study of the on-going projects like Dholera, Naya Raipur Development Authority (NRDA) and Vizag which are still in the consultancy selection phase and have importantly pointed out several variations which would in turn affect the development and operations in these cities. The transmission sector is growing at 25% again due to 3G and 4G implementation. \n\n According to the findings of the study conducted, in the current scenario, most of the Request for Proposal’s (RFQs) which have been put out for enlisting consultants for developing the architecture for these cities have a lot of inconsistencies and varied requirements even in small areas like Utilities. The same applies to the rest of the areas like public transport and security, smart transport management, waste, energy, healthcare, etc. as well. As a result, every smart city, every Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and every consultant today has a different functionality understanding and hence the need of a different ecosystem for final delivery. The company is a strong proponent of Digital India. The company has envisioned a high speed broadband of the smart cities. Thus as of today, no smart city - not just in India, but across the globe is completely defined or standardized. ', 'https://www.stl.tech/sterlite-live/blog_banners/10/medium/smart-city2ead.jpg?1459935106', 'need-for-standardization-in-the-smart-city-architecture.html')){kind=link}
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