Smart Cities, its mission and framework - Case of Coimbatore Smart City mission

1. Indhujaa P
02-12-18

2. Smart city:
No universally accepted definition. The conceptualisation of smart city varies from place to
place depending on the level of development, willingness to change and reform, resources and
aspirations of the city residents.
Smart city mission:
It is an urban renewal and retrofitting program by GOI with the mission to develop 100
cities across the country making them citizen friendly and sustainable.
The Union Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) is responsible for implementing the
mission in collaboration with the state governments of the respective cities.
Cities will be selected based on Smart cities challenge where cities except for West Bengal,
will compete in a countrywide competition to obtain the benefits from this mission.
5 year program – financial aid will by the central and state governments between 2017-22 to
the cities and the mission will start showing results from 2022 onwards.
To implement SPV Special Purpose Vehicle is created by each city headed by a full-time
CEO. The execution of projects done through joint ventures, subsidiaries, public-private
partnership (PPP), turnkey contracts, etc.,
Some typical features of comprehensive development in Smart Cities:
1. Promoting mixed land use in area based developments–planning for ‘unplanned areas’
2. Housing and inclusiveness
3. Creating walkable localities
4. Preserving and developing open spaces
5. Making governance citizen-friendly and cost effective
6. Giving an identity to the city
7. Apply Smart Solutions to infrastructure and services in area-based development in order to make
them better.
Approach:

3. Framework for Smart city concept plan:
Coimbatore – Smart City Vision statement:
Coimbatore will be an inclusive, secure, effectively governed and well-planned global
metropolis that offers universal, affordable to best-in-class civic services and efficient
transit orientation while fostering a dynamic and vibrant economy, nurturing a clean, green,
resilient and sustainable environment and striving to provide the highest quality of living
standards for a progressive, diverse and talented populace.
Priority Goals and Strategies:
Theme 1 – Universal access to best-in-class core services

4. Theme 2 – Effective Transit Orientation
Theme 3 – Clean, green, resilient, sustainable environment
Theme 4 – Progressive, diverse and talented populace

5. Theme 5 – Effectively governed, well planned metropolis
Pan-city initiatives:
Basic services with smart features
 24x7 supply for extended areas
 Sewerage for extended areas
 City wide Renewal for Water Bodies
 Proposals identified under NMT under CMP
 Municipal Solid waste collection and segregation
Other ‘smart’ initiatives
 Web-enabled E-governance / Mobile apps based e-governance
 City wide fibre networks and WiFi Hotspots
 Underground electric cabling, ducting for utilities
 Energy efficient street lighting
 CCTV surveillance
 Waste processing / Waste to energy
Area Development plan:
Initial views:
 Initial preference towards Retrofit / Re-development options
 Retrofit of select residential / commercial areas in city
 Convergence with other initiatives
 Replication possibility
 Hybrid redevelopment + retrofit options need to be evaluated
 Most stand-alone re-development options available do not meet minimum size

6.  Bus-stand terminal area re-development + adjoining residential / commercial
areas
 Water bodies / green area re-development + retrofit of adjoining areas
Criteria:
 Project scale and scope
 High replicability Vs. High transformative impact
 Convergence potential
 Practical Limitations / Stakeholder buy-in
 Fit with MOUD guidelines
Coimbatore Smart City is working on integrated plan to connect and develop the ecosystem across the 8
lakes of the city.
1. Narasampathi Lake 2. Krishnampathi Lake 3. Selvampathy Lake 4. Kumarasamy Lake 5. Selva
Chintamani Lake 6. Periyakulam 7. Valankulam 8. Singanallur Area Based development across all these
lakes with Technology, Biodiversity and Citizen Engagement.
Critique:
 Coimbatore has been ranked eighth among the first batch of 20 smart cities in implementing
and completing projects under the smart city mission in the last three years.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/62575654.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
 Only 6 projects completed under smart city mission.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Coimbatore/only-six-projects-completed-under-smart-cities-mission/article24216271.ece
Bibliographies:
 Wikipedia
 Coimbatore Municipal Corporation – smart city.