International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communication Control and Networking (ICACCCN2018)
Smart cities: Progress and Problems in
India
Ms. Priyanka Gupta
Assistant Professor
Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies
GGSIPU, New Delhi
pjain2004@gmail.com
Abstract
The urge of urbanization is increasing at a rapid rate
worldwide. It ensues the emergence and use of various
digital technologies like Internet of Things, Cloud
Computing, Big data Analytics, Intelligent computing etc.
The one important and most hyped application of such
technologies is Smart Cities. This concept revitalizesthe
whole city by strengthening its core competencies. It
automates every sector like transportation, homes, traffic,
agriculture, water and electricity supply, waste management,
health, education etc. This notion is implementing in various
parts of the world leading to the new level of urbanization.
The perception of this powerful approach in India is
presented in this paper. The current stage of this project and
the possible roadblocks in implementing it in Indian
scenario is also discussed in this manuscript.
Keywords:Smart city, Urbanization, Technologies.
I. INTRODUCTION
“Smart City” is the current terminology aiming to
provide better and automated life in urban cities. It
includes applying the most powerful and currently
trending technology called “Internet of Things” and
other communication technologies to the urban areas
in order to provide easy and smart access to public
resources.
Necessity is the mother of invention. As the cities
provide better resources and life, more people keeps
on moving towards them cumulatively. It is estimated
that by 2050, 68% population will live in the cities.
Increasing population inside cities at this rate gives
birth to the urgency of fast and reliable working of
existing limited public services. Thus, this necessity
commences the concept of smart cities.
A smart city gathers data from smart devices and
sensors embedded in its roadways, power grids,
buildings and other assets. It shares that data via a
smart communications system that is typically a
combination of wired and wireless. It then uses smart
ISBN: 978-1-5386-4119-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
Dr. Rajan Gupta
Associate Professor
Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies
GGSIPU, New Delhi
raajangupta@gmail.com
software to create valuable information and digitally
enhanced services. [1]
Several countries worldwide are already in a process
of developing the smart cities. For instance, according
to [2], United States is the first country implementing
the smart city concept in its various cities by
improving the transportation system, enhancing
energy efficiency, renovating communication and
information infrastructure, maintaining the safety and
security of citizens, reforming public governance and
addressing the challenges like traffic congestion and
energy consumption. Cities in US who are pioneers in
becoming smart cities include New York, San
Francisco, Boston, Seattle and San Jose.
European Union also joins in this race of becoming
smart cities by focusing on issues such as energy
conservation, emission reduction, regional
development, innovation strategy, start-ups, smart and
sustainable growth and 5G network. Countries of
European Union implementing smart city objectives
comprises of UK, Spain etc.
Asia is also not behind in this quest. Japanese govt.
announced the i-Japan Strategy[3] covering Electronic
Government and Local Government, Healthcare,
Education and Human Resources, Using Digital
Technologies and Information to Transform Industrial
Structure and Revitalize
Local Communities and Development
of Digital
Infrastructure. Similarly, South Korea initiated a
Smart Seoul 2015 programme[4] which focuses on
ICT application, integrated city management
framework and educating citizens to use smart
services. Singapore also adopts a smart city plan
shaping the city into a quality citystate.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2
depicts the smart city concept defined in Indian
context. Section 3 elaborate how this smart city
phenomenon is progressing in the current as well as in
the future scenario and Section 4 lists all the potential
1114
 International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communication Control and Networking (ICACCCN2018)
and neglected problems in establishing smart cities in
Indian circumstances followed by Conclusion (Section
5).
II. SMART CITY CONCEPT IN INDIA
The concept of smart city in India is not new. A few of
the smart cities are already underway, including Kochi
Smart City, Gujarat International Finance Tec-City
(GIFT) in Ahmedabad, Naya Raipur in Chhattisgarh,
Lavasa in Maharashtra and Wave Infratech's 4,500-
acre smart city near New Delhi.
However, our honorable Prime Minister Mr.
NarendraModi launched the Smart Cities mission in
June, 2015 in order to provide better quality life in
100 cities of India.
According to [5], the objective of smart cities is to
promote cities that provide core infrastructure and
give a decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and
sustainable environment and application of 'Smart'
Solutions. The focus is on sustainable and inclusive
development and the idea is to look at compact areas,
create a replicable model which will act like a light
house to other aspiring cities. The Smart Cities
Mission aims to set examples in terms of few smart
cities. These will become a role model in order to
create similar smart cities in other parts of the country.
As per Govt of India, Core infrastructure
elements of a smart city project includes
adequate water and electricity supply, solid
waste management, efficient public transport
system, affordable housing for the poor, robust
IT connectivity and digitization, e-governance
and citizen participation, safety and security,
sustainable environment, health and education
etc.
The smart cities mission strategy include following
components:
1. Retrofitting (City improvement)
It means applying the smart city features to the
existing city infrastructure in order to make it
more automated, reliable and liveable. This
strategy takes less time than building a whole
new smart city from scratch. Areas consisting
of more than 500 acres come under this
strategy.
2. Redevelopment (City renewal)
It means rebuilding the whole existing area
with a whole new layout plan. It replaces the
existing built-up environment and
infrastructure with smart solutions having
enhanced infrastructure using mixed land use
1115
and increased density. Areas consisting of more
than 50 acres come under this strategy. Two
working examples of this model include
SaifeeBurhaniUpliftment Project in Mumbai
(also called the Bhendi Bazaar Project) and
East Kidwai Nagar in New Delhi.
3. Greenfield development (City extension)
It means introducing smart city solutions to the
already vacant land (more than 250 acres) with
the vision of providing affordable housing and
other amenities to the constantly expanding
population in the cities. The working example
of this strategy is the GIFT city in Gujarat.
4. Pan-city development
Here, smart solutions are applied on the larger
parts of the city. At least one smart solution is
applied city wide. For example, applying smart
grids all across the city, intelligent traffic
management system, waste water management,
smart metering, smart education etc.
Various cities in different states are being
selected in various rounds depending upon the
proposals submitted by them. Each of the smart
city candidate have to encapsulate at least one
of the area based development (retrofitting,
development or greenfield development) plus at
least one feature of pancity development city-
wide.
In January 2016, based on the All India
Competition, 20 smart cities were selected in
Round 1. 13 more Smart Cities were selected in
May 2016 in fast track round. In Round 2, 63
potential smart cities participated of which, 27
Smart Cities have been selected in September
2016. In Round 3, 45 potential smart cities
participated of which, 30 Smart Cities have
been selected in June 2017. [6]
The finally selected candidates for smart cities
construction include Bangalore, Kolkata, Bhopal, Pune,
Surat, Jaipur, Kochi, Ahmedabad etc. Under the smart city
programme, each city will be given Rs.500 crore by the
Centre over five years. The states will have to make a
matching contribution.
The implementation of the Smart Cities Mission is done by
a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to be set up at city level
in the form of a limited company under the Companies
Act, 2013 and will be promoted by the State/UT and the
Urban Local Body (ULB) jointly both having 50:50 equity
shareholding. After selection, each selected Smart Cities
have to set up SPVs and start implementation of their
Smart City Proposal, preparation of Detailed Project
Reports (DPRs), tenders etc.
 International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communication Control and Networking (ICACCCN2018)
III. PROGRESS OF SMART CITIES IN INDIA
When we talk about the progress of smart cities in India,
this project is still at its inception phase. Govt. of India did
not standardize the smart city plan for all the cities. Every
city must build its own vision, mission and strategy based
on the conditions, availability of resources and citizens‟
participation.
Although, it would take much time and resources to build
100 smart cities in India completely, yet there is work
related to this new paradigm going on in different cities at
multiple levels depending upon the resources availability,
citizen‟s participation, govt. approvals, corruption levels,
chosen business models etc.
To realize its smart cities mission, India is actively seeking
international collaboration and has already signed deals
with foreign partners in the US, Spain, Germany and
Singapore, Japan and the UK. According to figures on the
Union urban development ministry‟s website, 49.5%
projects are yet to be initiated. Of the 731 smart city
projects worth Rs.46,366crore approved so far,
implementation has started in 49 (6.7%).
For instance, application of smart grid technology in Delhi.
Smart grid is an electrical power grid which generates,
distributes, prepares bills of consumers, studies
consumer‟s behavior and finds and restores the fault in an
automated manner. Tata Power Delhi Distribution
(TPDDL) launched a „Smart Grid Lab‟ to substantiate
various operational and advanced information technologies
and their benefits. This technology provides sustainable,
reliable and efficient production and distribution of
electricity.
Similarly, smart water supply has also been implemented
in various cities of India including Vellore, Nagpur etc. It
includes water cycle management through online
monitoring and distribution of water using GIS, applying
smart water meters to determine the average and peak
demand areas, automating leakage detection and rectifying
them and online billing system. This results in 24/7 clean
water supply in several urban and rural areas.
Further, smart solid waste management is at its beginning
stage in India. Urbanization leads to increasing solid waste
and improper solid waste treatment leads to pollution,
unhygienic conditions, wastage of recyclable resources
and environment degradation. In many cities including
Kerala, Alappuzha, Panaji etc., smart collection and
segregation of waste, GPS enabled transportation of solid
waste, sensor based bins and smart recycling of reusable
waste are taking place at different levels.
Also, the govt. and municipal services are becoming online
and they can also be accessed via apps. For example, now
you can apply for your adhaar card, voter id card, passport
1116
etc., can upload the documents online and can check the
status of your application online. e-Tender, e-panchayat,
eproperty, e-toilets, e-return filing, e-education etc.
contributes to the fast and reliable governance and public
communication in today‟s era.
Smart transportation, smart traffic control, smart
parking and smart logistics are also being
implemented in various parts of the country.
On a higher level, several industrial corridors are also
being planned under Greenfield development arena of
smart city project. According to Press Information
Bureau, Government of India, Ministry of Commerce
& Industry, such industrial corridors include Delhi-
Mumbai industrial corridor, Chennai-Bengaluru
industrial corridor, BengaluruMumbai economic
corridor, Amritsar-Kolkata industrial corridor and
East-Coast economic corridor.
IV. PROBLEMS IN IMPLEMENTING SMART
CITIES IN INDIA
The concept of smart cities is an attractive and sturdy
concept resulting in changing the tag from developing
to the developed country. But, implementing this
notion in India is the most challenging task the
country has ever faced. Just selecting the „smart cities‟
over different rounds doesn‟t make the cities smart.
Many problems have been identified by both govt. and
non govt. organizations and researchers in establishing
the smart cities globally. Like, [7] introduces
problems like financing, financial sustainability and
technical constraints of ULBs, three-tier governance
and reliability of utility services. Also, [8] presents
problems like connectivity, waste management, mixed
social structure, urban resilience, smart grids or energy
networks etc. In short, many researchers and activists
represent mostly hardware and software related
problems, like connectivity issues, bandwidth issues,
network issues etc. but in India these problems come
after some basic problems which needs to be
identified and solved first.
Digital, networking and ICT issues in India are
secondary problems. Some of the unnoticed problems
in Indian context are listed below:
a) User’s behavior and use
Although many awareness programs are running to
encourage Indian citizens to embrace digitization and
urbanization yet in today‟s scenario, there are a good
amount of people who does not even know how to use
smart objects and sensor technologies. The idea of
doing everything manually is so much inculcated in
the Indian citizen‟s mind that automating everything is
 International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communication Control and Networking (ICACCCN2018)
itself not acceptable by them. eg., a normal Indian
citizen would like to give bribe to the people in order
to get their work done rather than using govt. websites
and apps to use the public resources.
Thus, before implementing a new era of IoT and smart
city, citizens‟ mind set must be changed and they must
be encouraged to use the new technologies.
b) Need more time and resources to build smart cities
India is a country where even the basic necessities of
life like clean water 24/7, electricity, shelter, food,
education etc. are not available to a good part of the
country especially in rural areas. Also, the basic
infrastructure of the country is not so strong that the
idea of building 100 smart cities over the period of 5
years seems unsustainable. Broken roads, improper
sewage collection, faulty constructions, increasing
population, inefficient transport networks etc.
demands for redesigning and retrofitting the existing
groundwork of the country on a more serious note
rather than building the entire new cities or converting
the existing cities into the „smart one‟. To build a
single smart city, extensive use of IoT sensor
technologies, 24/7 connectivity and other related
machinery is required in which India is still lacking
compared to other countries.
Thus, more time and more resources are required to
fulfill the dream of smart cities mission in India.
c) Need adequate and skilled work force According to
the govt. of India, each aspiring city must establish
and run SPV (special purpose vehicle) which is a
limited company having 50:50 equity shareholding
among State/UT and ULB. It must be headed by a full
time CEO, nominees of central govt., state govt. and
ULB. The purpose of SPV is to release funds, monitor
and manage the whole smart city project city wise.
Without a single smart city in India and the proper
guidelines available, the appointments of the above
posts with adequate skills and training is difficult.
Also, since India holds corruption at various levels,
this whole project of establishing and maintaining
SPVs in different cities invites the corrupted minds
and political parties to earn benefits.
Also, establishing hardware and software, building
new apps and implementing new technologies to build
a smart city requires more technical competence.
d) Safety and security
With more and more technologies coming into the
picture, safety and security of citizens become a
nightmare for the govt. Citizens of India are already
facing cyber threats while using smart phones, smart
embedded devices, anonymous use of the internet and
other available gadgets. Further embracing more
automated devices, sensors, cloud computing,
intelligent systems, artificial intelligence etc. to build
smart cities imposes great challenge over the safety
and security concerns of the citizens.
1117
e) Poverty and education
India is home to over one-third of poor population
worldwide. According to [9]. Almost 22% of the
Indians are poor today. Also according to [10], 37% of
the total illiterate people in the world comes under
India. With this level of poverty and illiteracy, people
tend to earn their daily breads by hook or by crook.
An empty stomach overpowers the urge of
contributing in making cities smart.
f) Converting people from govt. haters to govt.
friendly is difficult
Unfortunately, in India, govt. people consider
themselves the powerful people in the country rather
than considering themselves the citizens‟ servants.
They probably do not like to involve a citizen in most
of the important decisions taken by them at different
levels. Also, transparency in information sharing is
not a cup of tea for Indian govt. Because of the above
problems, most of the citizens become govt. haters
because of which they are unable to cooperate with the
smart city schemes or other schemes „imposed‟ by the
govt. on them. Govt. must implement a more friendly
approach towards the citizens rather than fear based or
punishment based approach.
g) No definite standards were defined
There is no „one size fits all‟ model for smart cities in
India. The lack of standardization leads to the
confused and mixed understanding for the cities to
become smart cities in India. Choosing the aspiring
cities over various rounds depending upon their
proposals is itself a demotivating factor for the other
cities. Proper guidelines must be documented
explaining all the aspects and expectations of the
smart city mission in greater detail.
V. CONCLUSION
Smart city is much powerful terminology in today‟s
scenario but implementing it on real grounds actually
demands much experienced persona, a huge budget, a
well-established infrastructure and most importantly
citizens‟ cooperation and support. But, in India before
going to the higher levels, some basic and more
prioritized obstructions like poverty, illiteracy,
corruption levels etc. needs to be addressed on a faster
track. In one line, we can say, India is still very far
from becoming a smart and developed country. Right
amount of work by the right persons in the right
direction is the foremost requirement in India.
REFERENCES
[1] Jon DeKeles, “Our Sector, smart cities council”, available at
https://smartcitiescouncil.com/article/our-sector
International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communication Control and Networking (ICACCCN2018)

[2] “Research report on smart city, Central Policy Unit, The

government of the Hong Kong special,Administrative region,
September 2015” available at
http://www.cpu.gov.hk/doc/en/research_reports/CPU%20rese
arch%20report%20-%20Smart%20City(en).pdf
[3] Japan IT Strategic Headquarters, “i-Japan Strategy 2015:
Striving to Create a Citizen-Driven, Reassuring & Vibrant
Digital Society – Towards Digital inclusion & innovation” (6
Jul 2009).
[4] Seoul Metropolitan Government, “Smart Seoul 2015: Basic
Strategic Plan for Informatisation of Seoul Metropolitan City”
(2011).
[5] https://www.india.gov.in/spotlight/smart-citiesmission-step-
towards-smart-india
[6] http://moud.gov.in/cms/smart-cities.php
[7] Dr. J. Thirumaran ,Principal, Rathinam College of Arts and
Science (Autonomous) ,Coimbatore, Dr. T. Santhiya Rani,
Associate Professor, Rathinam College of Arts and
Science(Autonomous) ,Coimbatore,” Smart Cities &
Challenges in India - A Vision”
[8] Kuldeep Singh, Neha Sharma ,Assistant Prof., Department of
Commerce S.G.G.S. College,
Sector 26, Chandigarh,” SMART CITIES IN INDIA: KEY
AREAS AND CHALLENGES –
CASE STUDY OF CHANDIGARH CITY”
[9] "Number and Percentage of Population BelowPoverty Line".
Reserve Bank of India. 2012. Archived fromthe original on 7
April 2014. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
[10] “India‟s illiterate population largest in the world, says
UNESCO report” available at
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/indiasilliterate-
population-largest-in-the-world-
saysunescoreport/article5631797.ece

1118