COVER STORY Smart Cities

For interviews, slideshows and more, go to

businesstoday.in/smartcities-india

A Tale of 100

RACHIT GOSWAMI

Smart Cities

welve kilometres from Ahmedabad, the Sabarmati river

runs dry. Two buildings, 122 metres high, tower over
parcels of construction-ready and waste land beneath.
Newly built serpentine roads sometimes lead to nowhere.
As the sun sets over Gujarat International Finance Tec-City
(GIFT), construction workers make a beeline out of a nearly
complete data centre.
A decade from now, the place would rock. The river
would brim with clean blue water. High rises with sparkling glass facades would form a necklace around the river
curve, much like Shanghai. The tallest of them all would
be the Diamond Tower, 410 metres high. After trading in
equities, currencies and diamonds all day, nearly a million
people would chill in cafes by the waterfront, shop at craft
bazaars, or just jet ski.
If GIFT goes as per plan, it could be among Indias earliest smart cities. India wants to build at least a 100 of them

The quest to build them and the problems on the way.

By GOUTAM DAS and MANU KAUSHIK

` 7,060

crore

45 Minutes
` 40 lakh

crore

Investment required to build basic

infrastructure, including transport,
water and sanitation, in all urban
areas, including 500 cities and
smart cities

100 Mbps

Money allocated by Finance

Minister Arun Jaitley to
provide focus to smart cities
in his rst budget
in July 2014

Maximum travel time across

metropolitan smart cities

135 Litres
Water supply to
each individual everyday

The speed at which Internet

services will be provided
in smart cities

200 Beds
Number of beds in a multi-speciality
hospital for every one lakh people
living in a smart city

A view of Palava city: The Lodha Groups

city, near Mumbai, is based on the walk to
everything principle, where every home is
ve minutes from utility services. Energy,
transport, water and waste management, are
controlled by a command centre
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COVER STORY Smart Cities

To read about GIFT's progress, go to

businesstoday.in/smartcities-gift

GIFT Modis Present

romoted by the Gujarat Urban Development

Company and engineering company IL&FS, the
city has been envisioned as a nancial services
hub. Construction of the 886 acre greeneld near
Ahmedabad is progressing well. The city will have an
integrated urban transport system, consisting metro
services, travelators, other public transportation
options as well as pedestrian pathways. The citys
infrastructure network is hidden in a utility tunnel.
Smart elements include an automated solid waste
collection system as well as a district cooling system.
RACHIT GOSWAMI

as per Prime Minister Narendra Modis commitment to

the nation. Its a monstrous ambition that is fast becoming
a social and economic imperative as at least 50 per cent
of Indians are set to live in urban areas by 2050, as
against just 32 per cent today. India must provide for
these 814 million people in cities with minimum disruption and least chaos. The existing cities have failed to do
so for lack of focus or planning.

The Great Vacuum

The problem is that one year since Modis announcement,
India is still grappling with the nuts and bolts of setting up
a smart city. Not a penny has been used from the `7,060
crore allocated in the Union Budget 2014 to provide the
necessary focus to smart cities. We have not launched
the scheme yet. So there is no question of any expenditure
on that account. Smart city is a new concept to India
various stakeholders have to be taken on board and you
have to sustain them, says Urban Development Minister
M. Venkaiah Naidu (see his interview on page 52).
We dont know what will constitute a smart city. We
dont know who will certify them. We dont know how
they will be funded. And, obviously, we havent identified
a smart city yet.
A 46-page concept note released by the urban development ministry attempts to answer some of those questions. It has come up with the mother of all definitions:
cities which have smart (intelligent) physical, social, institutional and economic infrastructure which ensure
centrality of citizens in a sustainable environment.
Nobody disputes that definition. In fact, panelists at the
BT-Nasscom Roundtable on Smart Cities called it the most

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holistic definition possible. But the trick lies in execution.

And there is very little to boast of that on the ground.
It is too early to talk on smart cities, says Babul
Supriyo, Minister of State for Urban Development, biting
into a chicken shawarma as he strolled in around 8.30
p.m. on January 18 for a dinner hosted by Sushma Paul
Berlia, Co-founder and President of Apeejay Stya &
Svran Group.
The draft concept note has been prepared and placed
in public domain. The website has been launched. The
selection criteria for smart cities are at the final stage of
approval. In coming days, before March, we will go to the
expenditure finance committee and then it will go to
cabinet and (it) will be rolled somewhere around the end
of March, assures Naidu.

Many Shades of Smart

Still, there are no clear answers as to what a smart city is
anywhere in the world. It is one of Indias struggles too.
Most smart city definitions and, thereby its scope, are all
western. Consulting and IT firms propound a tech-centric
approach to smart cities; transport firms propose intense
infrastructure-focus; utlility management firms propose
a citizen-centric plan and pollution control firms propose
a sustainability-based approach (read the various attempts at businesstoday.in/smartcities-india).
Technology and consulting firm IBM, for instance,
defines smart cities as those that make use of all the information available from city systems, processes and
people to use resources efficiently, make better data-driven
decisions, and proactively anticipate and resolve problems. But for British city Manchester, smart city means

smart citizens where citizens have all the information they need to make informed choices about their
lifestyle, work and travel options.
For many Indian municipalities, smartness thus
far meant e-governance+, or anything a bit more
than e-governance services. That view is changing.
Smart city is a place which is integrated consumer
to government to business; where there is optimal
employment and growth and where you get the right
skill sets. The growth being beyond survival issues of
roti, kapada and makaan, says Jalaj Shrivastava,
Chairman, New Delhi Municipal Corporation.
As more people migrate to urban centres for employment, cities need to get smarter about how they
manage the utilities, transport and congestion, healthcare as well as education. So Indias concept note has
put together all these to come up with one of its own.
The ministry note defines benchmarks for various
services. In transportation, for instance, the maximum
travel time should be 30 minutes in small and medium-sized cities and 45 minutes in metros. The water
availability has to be 135 litres per capita per day. In
addition, 95 per cent of residences should have retail,
parks, primary schools and recreational areas accessible within 400 metres.
Advisory firm Frost & Sullivan stitches
the different pieces that make up a smart
city. It highlights eight parameters that
make a city smart: governance, energy,
homes and buildings, mobility, infrastructure, technology, healthcare, and citizen.
No city has all of these and according to
Frost & Sullivan, in 2025, there will be
around 26 global smart cities that will have
at least five of the above parameters.
Some suspect that one day a definition
could be imposed top-down from Delhi. The
Bureau of Indian Standards is working on a
smart city standard. And while standards
are generally voluntary, nothing stops the
government from making them mandatory.
We are struggling with the definition.
As a country we are struggling because its
not one definition that can fit across the
country, says Banmali Agrawala, President and CEO
of GE, South Asia. One cannot have a common definition of what constitutes smart mobility, for instance.
For a hill city, says S.B.S. Bhadauria, Secretary of
Sikkims Transport Department, smart mobility means
ropeways, and not trams or buses.

Your Smart City Versus Mine

The next challenge is: how will smart cities be identified? (The) selection process will be through competition. The willingness of the city to be reformed and

BARCELONA Peoples City

arcelona positions the citizen at the centre of

its smart city strategy. It is running projects
in many areas to ensure the citys residents
benet from a better quality of life and economic
growth. The projects include public services,
environment, mobility, infrastructure, tourism,
companies and businesses, research, communications,
and citizen cooperation. A government app
Apps4Bcn allows citizens to assess and contribute
to city policies. The city has a technology platform
to integrate and analyse city data. It is also one
of Europes largest city with a free-access public
Wi-Fi network, a new bus network based on vertical,
horizontal and diagonal routes, as well as trafc lights
that emit sound for the visually challenged.

SHUTTERSTOCK

willingness of its leadership to undertake reforms and

bold actions [will be assesed], says Naidu.
The government plans to identify 20 smart cities
in 2015, 40 in 2016 and another 40 in 2017. Naidu
says there will be a cap of two-three smart cities per
state. Though, given Indias federal structure, states
will have a significant say in identifying the smart cities they wish to focus on. At the end of the day, it is
the central government, state governments and urban
local bodies [which] will be involved in finally identifying the cities, says Naidu. We dont want to dictate

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COVER STORY Smart Cities

from Delhi [as to] which city should be made smart city
in a particular state. The states will decide.
The government has to pick its 100 from 4,041
towns and cities and the Ministry of Urban
Development chose a consultative approach to decide
on the criteria. In January last week, it organised a
workshop with the states. A city challenge programme
has been announced. Cities now have to compete on
several parameters to be eligible. There will be a twostage selection process. In the first stage, cities that can
compete will be picked. The selection at this stage
would be based on vision, progress under the Swachh
Bharat Mission, payments of salaries to municipal staff
on time, information and grievance redressal mechanisms as also an e-news letter. As competition intensifies, the government will look deeper into issues such
as self-financing abilities of the cities, service levels and
track record in implementing reforms. Thats stage
two. The first leg of the city challenge programme is
expected to be completed in about nine months; the
central government may make some financial commitments to around 20 cities,
officials in the know told BT. Once the cities are selected, they would either be
guided to redevelop or retrofit.
Private city developers watch out.
Your projects will not qualify for the
smart city label in Naidus scheme of
things. If it is a business proposition, he is
on his own. What does he require from
me? If he wants me to pat on his back, I
will definitely do it, says Naidu. So despite
Infosys CEO Vishal Sikkas assertion that
the companys Mysore campus will be
Indias first smart city, that will not be the
case. They have some technology
wherein they can reduce the cost of energy by 40 per cent... I will be suggesting
to different cities that these are the avenues and the opportunities. They have to
take part in open bidding, explains
Naidu. HCC Group, which is developing
Lavasa city in Maharashtra, recently made a pitch to
the urban development ministry that is being assessed,
though the Lavasa website claims it is first of India's
100 new cities. The government comes into picture
where there is government investment. If they [private
companies] follow the town planning and environment rules, banks will fund them, says Naidu.

Interview with Wolfgang Schmidt, State Secretary,

Hamburg, at businesstoday.in/smartcities-schmidt

HAMBURG Seatropolis

amburg has the second-largest container port in

Europe with over 9.4 million containers handled
every year. To prevent trafc snarls caused
by trucks and loaders, the city has implemented a
smart trafc management system. Information, such
as trafc bottlenecks, construction work and location
of containers expected to be picked up, are conveyed
to drivers over smart phones or tablets. For the city
residents, trafc app Switchh Hamburg prompts routes
and transportation options, such as buses, taxis, cycles
and ferry, and the estimated travel cost. It connects
automatically to a car-sharing software and taxi app.

SHUTTERSTOCK

On its part, the Centre is suggesting various cities

to various countries that are coming forward to participate. To the US trade agency (USTDA), I suggested
Visakhapatnam, Ajmer and Allahabad. Their team
has gone there, says Naidu. Japan is interested in
Varanasi. Singapore is studying the model for the new
capital city of Andhra Pradesh Vijayawada-Guntur.
Australia, Germany, Sweden and France are inter-

RAMAKANT JHA, MD and CEO, GIFT

There should be smartness in planning, design, development and operation of

the city since inception. It should be designed so that resources are optimised
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COVER STORY Smart Cities

Read about businesses that will drive new cities at

businesstoday.in/smartcities-businesses

RIO DE JANEIRO A Single View

o prepare for the 2014 Football World Cup and,

subsequently, the 2016 Olympics, Rio worked with
IBM and Cisco to set up an operations centre
that integrated information from over 30 different city
agencies to aid weather monitoring and forecast, trafc
management and emergency response coordination.
The city departments, which were used to working in
silos, experienced a cultural change with the new centre.
SHUTTERSTOCK

ested. We are engaging them, says Naidu.

There are global examples to look up to. Barcelona, for
instance, prides itself in being a liveable city. Its citizens
are at the centre of the smart city strategy. They were
trying to protect the quality of life for Barcelona citizens
and for tourists who come there. Smell sensors were put
in garbage bins if bins smell, it will impact the tourist,
says Anil Menon, Ciscos President of Smart+Connected
Communities and Deputy Chief Globalization Officer.

The Financing Conundrum

As per the urban development ministrys estimate, the
100 smart cities (and rejuvenation of 500 other cities with
population of 1 lakh and above) will cost more than `40
lakh crore over 20 years. That includes infrastructure
such as water supply, sewerage and transportation.
Clearly, the government does not have the resources
to fund all of it by itself. So, the concept paper has proposed public-private partnership (PPP) to set up these
cities. While there has been wild speculation about how
the cities will be managed, Naidu goes a step further to
confirm that hes likely to follow the GIFT model of setting
up a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to manage and fund
PPP projects.
Contrary to belief that the Centre will fund these SPVs,
the Centres funds will purely be used in viability gap fund-

ing (VGF). Interestingly, Naidu says the only area that will
be funded directly by the Centre will be the digitisation of
each smart city. VGF, in turn, will depend on ratings each
city secures on parameters such as sanitation, infrastructure, transport, education facilities, open public space and
credit worthiness. We will be engaging CRISIL and a lot
of [ratings] organisations. Certain states already have
credit ratings, says Naidu.
An SPV model will typically have three-four equity
partners the central government, the state government,
municipal bodies and the private sector. A city can have
multiple projects. Each of those projects can be dealt with
by an SPV, which would become the nodal agency. But
forming project-specific SPVs has its own challenges. It
would mean devolution of power from the municipal
commissioners, MLAs and other government officials to
the person heading the SPV who will have executive powers. SPVs should be delegated powers to plan, develop,
execute, implement, operate and maintain. All six are
equally important. Some people will not be comfortable
with relinquishing their power but ultimately, the governments job should be restricted to making policies, says a
government official who does not want to be named.
As far as PPP is concerned, they can go for joint interest in which private sponsors consisting of a consortium of private companies will contribute equity to the

ANIL MENON, President, Smart+Connected Communities, Cisco

Visionary leadership is very important... If they (the leaders) dont have a clear
idea and are just mouthing smart cities, you know nothing is going to happen
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COVER STORY Smart Cities

JV [joint venture]. The model memorandum of understanding for the establishment of JV will be pro-

vided as part of the guidelines only. Capacity building

will be provided by states, and cities for establishment
of SPVs and JVs, says Naidu.
How will you finance brownfield projects is a million-dollar question, especially when sanctity of contracts is not respected? Thats a question posed by
many potential investors worried about the policy flipflops. If I am signing a 25-year contract, the bureaucrats will keep changing. So will the political parties,
and their perceptions. I always run this risk in a country like India that my contract will not be honoured,
says Harry Dhaul, Founder and Director General of the
Independent Power Producers Association of India.
For the rest, many models have been suggested for
financing the capital and operational investments.
Brownfield projects can have three sources of income:
land monetization in cases of redevelopment, user
charges or squeezing out inefficiencies in the current
system so that they can pay for investments. The returns on investment can be generated through land
monetisation by increasing FAR floor area ratio or
total floor area of a building in comparison to the size
of the land upon which it is built.
In fact, the governments concept note talks about
the revision of laws governing land. Land in cities is
at a premium and the existing FARs does not permit
development of high rises, which results in high cost
of housing. To ensure availability of affordable housing
for every citizen, the existing FARs and bye-laws needs
immediate revision, the note points out.

AMSTERDAM Smart Partners

he Amsterdam Economic Board, City of

Amsterdam, Dutch utility company Liander
and telecommunications rm KPN Amsterdam,
among others, formed a unique partnership between
businesses, government, research institutions and
citizens, to build the Amsterdam Smart City (ASC). There
are over 70 entities working towards ASCs goal to
contribute positively towards achieving CO2 emission
targets, as well as aiding the economic development of
the city. For instance, Philips, along with a few others,
is running a pilot on an automatic street lighting system
that will adjust to the weather using sensor data. The
energy saved will be used to power Wi-Fi networks!

Too Many Cooks, No Chef

No less than eight ministries need to work together to
build a smart city, says B.K. Sinha, Head of Civil
Engineering at the Bureau of Indian Standards. These
are the ministries of urban development, IT, power,
road transport and highways, water resources, labour
and employment, human resource development, and
consumer affairs, food and public distribution. Policies
at the central level are being framed by the urban development ministry but there is no single point clearing house for contacts private investors look for.
Worldwide, there are examples of inter-departmental coordination to make things happen. The
Chicago mayors office has two positions that help different city departments work in cohesion the Chief
Technology Officer (CTO) and the Chief Data Officer

SHUTTERSTOCK

(CDO). While the CTO guides the mayor in technology

choices, the CDO guides policy decisions based on spatial data. He also has the strategic role of creating the
citys open data policies, and is a prime liaison with the
community. For Chicago, this community liaison role
is particularly important as a significant proportion of
the smart cities work in Chicago lies at the boundary
between government, the community and private

BANMALI AGRAWALA, President and CEO, South Asia, GE

Theres no commercialisation of the smart city concept. One of the reasons

why it is a challenge is that you have multiple agencies that run a city
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COVER STORY Smart Cities

Find out how smart cities will be selected at

businesstoday.in/smartcities-selection

LAVASA Hill City

industan Construction
Company has invested
around `5,000 crore till
March 2014 to construct Lavasa,
a planned hill city near Pune.
Besides ensuring a good walking
town, Lavasa has a well laid out
plan for water sustainability. It
is setting up a command centre
that monitors water treatment
and sewerage systems, on a realtime basis.
RACHIT GOSWAMI

sector stakeholders, states a research paper by the UKs

Department of Business Innovation and skills.
Smart cities also call for a new mindset, and both citizens and the government need to get used to new ways of
dealing with private companies. The government may
also need to collapse its departments to create a new structure. The private sector has solutions but it doesnt know
who to sell into in cities. In most cities, the traffic, sewage
system, electrical systems, and roads are each managed
by different agencies. Even at the central government
level, many stakeholders need to work in unison.
But in creating new solutions, its the brownfield cities
in India that face a bigger challenge. Retrofitting an old
city with smart solutions imply incurring a capital cost.
The government expects that most of it will be taken up
either as complete private investment or through PPP.
There are institutional platforms to discuss things
openly in the presence of others. The government needs
to be cautious against additional reporting structures that
push up the cost of compliance, says Vishal Dhar CoFounder of iYogi, which offers technology support services
as well as services in smart housing. There are enough
examples of PPP projects, especially in the infrastructure
sector, not doing well in the past few years. PPPs succeed
with minimum interference, he adds.
Some point to Reliance Infrastructures dispute with
Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC). In July 2013,
Reliance Infra said that Delhi Airport Metro Express, its
SPV, terminated the Concession Agreement with DMRC for

the Delhi airport metro line. Reliance Infra said that DMRC
failed to cure substantial defects in the civil structure
designed and built by DMRC, within the period prescribed
under the Concession Agreement.
If the private sector invests, is there a visibility on returns? Companies are unsure if citizens will pay more for
a better or value-added service. If there is a capital investment in say GPS systems for buses, will citizens at least pay
for the operational costs in terms of higher bus fares? Or
will they pay for better-quality water?
Naidu insists there are no free lunches and that the
government is looking to get citizens to pay for better
services. Correcting service charges requires political
stamina for a leader because all these years, we are used
to free services. We made people to think sab kaam sarkar
karega, hum bekaar baithe toh chalega. We politicians have
developed this attitude over the years. Keeping that in
mind, first of all, we have to change the mindset, he says.
The key to rolling out is how we get our act together
in terms of consolidation at the government level, the institutional frameworks, the roll out plans, how innovative
we are in drawing the funds and keeping citizens engaged.
Citizens can make or break it, says Karuna Gopal,
President, Foundation for Futuristic Cities, at the BTNasscom panel discussion.
Despite the host of issues, a large number of private
players are keen to play a role in Indias smart cities story.
The governments concept note says companies including
KPMG, PwC, IL&FS, Accenture, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco,

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COVER STORY Smart Cities

Interview with NIUA Director Jagan Shah at

businesstoday.in/smartcities-shah

DHOLERA Future City

he 575 sq. km city in Gujarat, planned for a

residential population of two million by 2042, is
a work in progress. The Gujarat Infrastructure
Development Board along with Delhi Mumbai Industrial
Corridor are the promoters. Land use planning and
preliminary pre-engineering work is complete; a
design and construction tender for building 72 km of
roads and underground pipelines for the rst phase,
is expected to be awarded in another six months.
The estimated infrastructure cost for a period of 30
years stands at `70,000 crore. Here, the residents will
not have to walk more than 500 meters to reach the
nearest park or the nearest transport facility.

Wipro, TCS, Infosys and Tech Mahindra have made

presentations to the ministry. All these companies
bring in a wealth of global experience, and globally,
some brownfield cities have managed to cut through
the maze of city department silos. In Boston, there is a
Mayors Office of New Urban Mechanics, which acts
as a bridge between the government and citizens.
Formed in 2010, the body builds partnerships between constituents, academics, entrepreneurs, nonprofits and city staff.

Retrofitting Cities
Once the cities are selected, they would either be
guided to redevelop or retrofit. Retrofitting, for instance, will be done in areas such as Defence Colony

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in New Delhi as the locality is in a good condition and

will need less work and investment. That locality
might require widening of roads, making cycle tracks,
improvement in waste management system, Wi-Fi
facilities. In this case, the cost has to be borne by the
citizens, says an official of the urban development
ministry. Redevelopment, on the other hand, will require large-scale changes. For example, in a congested
area like in Delhis Daryaganj, where theres not much
scope of improving the infrastructure, the plan will be
to demolish, and build vertically. In such cases, the
citizens will be rehabilitated to some other location for
a brief period, the official says. An example of this is
Kathputli Colony in West Delhi where about 2,800
families will resettle for about two years in semi-permanent structures in Anand Parbat. The slum is being
redeveloped. Redevelopment is inevitable because
greenfield projects take time, says N.S.N. Murty of
PricewaterhouseCoopers. He says that for redevelopment, the government should first pick up either waste
land or land holdings with PSUs within cities.
You have to create an engine that will propel itself. One principle lever is FSI in a city. When
Chandrababu Naidu was the chief minister of Andhra
Pradesh, they were looking at widening roads. The
method then was to decide on how much had to be
widened and acquire the land. The new method was
to give extra FSI to build. So people demolished their
building and went vertical, says Nasscom President
R. Chandrashekhar.
People are thinking that smart cities can be created like this, says Naidu, snapping his fingers. You
cannot rebuild the entire city. It all depends upon the
criteria, willingness and preparation of those urban
local bodies. For example, if you are going for metro
[project]. Metro is going to cost Rs 200 crore per km.
Somebody has to study it otherwise companies will not
come and invest here. Some feasibility study has to be
made. Then, [it is] peoples willingness. It will be put to
general body discussion in corporation. There will be
project monitoring units which will evaluate smart
city proposals for extending VGF, says Naidu.

The Coming Gold Rush

The `40 lakh crore that will flow into the smart cities
implies a gold rush for consultants, architects, engineering, technology and construction firms as well as
the banks and other financiers.
Almost every month, there is a smart city conference in New Delhi; consultants trumpet their global

AJAY THAKURI

WHAT MAKES A CITY SMART

SMART CITY DUMB CITY
Low power theft will
result in high collection
for power distribution
companies and adequate
power supply throughout

High power theft results

in power shortage and
frequent blackouts

Better trafc ow, low

pollution levels and free
parking for citizens even
during high trafc ow

Congestion, slow-moving
trafc, lack of parking lots
and high pollution levels

Unied city view will

result in better planning in
maintaining the city and
low costs of execution

No unied city view results

in periodic digging up of
roads to upgrade existing
facilities, but to no avail

24/7 water supply and

efcient metering will
result in higher collection
for service providers

Water shortage and

non-metered supply
results in revenue losses
to service providers

Low instances of medical

errors and high efciency
in hospital operations

High cost of healthcare due

to limited record of health
history of citizens

Efcient information
sharing between citizens
and government agencies

Extensive role of
middlemen

Competition between
cities to attract investment
through ease of rules and
clarity on regulations
Source: NASSCOM, PwC

Lack of details for investors

on the investment potential
of the city

experience, self-styled smart city experts lecture on

the path India must take, companies crowd to talk
about their expertise. Those carrying out the civil
work of roads construction, laying pipelines and
fibre may bag the biggest chunk of the yearly spending that is expected to be required for just the infrastructure work water supply, sewerage, sanitation
and transportation. Typically, in a project, around
85 per cent is construction cost, says Jagdish
Salgaonkar, Senior Vice President at programme
management company AECOM. Construction costs
include labour, material and equipment. In smart
cities, equipment such as routers, cameras and sensors can add up to a significant cost. Only about
15 per cent is non-construction cost. That is what
consulting, architect, civil engineering, programme
management, ICT planners, and legal services companies among others can bag, Salgaonkar adds.
Consulting, design, engineering and construction companies have been making a beeline to
Nirman Bhawan, the hotbed of smart city brainstorming. Many of them are a frustrated lot after a
year of chasing the government. But the reality is,
you cant fault the Centre for moving slow on the
smart cities initiative. It is, after all, a work-inprogress. Here, as well as anywhere else in the
world. And despite the various models in action
around the world, India will have to develop its own
unique model of smart cities that will prioritise local
issues in body and soul. The earlier it does that, the
better it will be for the great urban push. ~

@Goutam20; @manukaushik

March 15 2015 BUSINESS TODAY 51

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