Understand Modi through Indian Smart City Vision

By Faiz Askari, Editor of SMEStreet

'Sab ka Sath, Sab ka Vikas' is now a proven success mantra of Modi age of India. Elaborated analysis of this statement also says that Indian leadership is now working on a vision which is about taking India to the next level. One of the most important attraction of this next level is the vision of Smart Cities.

Now, the Modi approach of Smart Cities are not just at a concept level. There are few examples in the world which claims to be smarter than many. For example, Rio De Jenero of Brazil has set a good example just before the World Cup 2014 event.

Needless to say that Delhi missed such opportunity of being termed as a Smart City while organizing the Commonwealth Games 2010. Now, lets look at the Plans of Mr Modi in modifying India cities into smarter cities.

Now what exactly reflect smartness in a city? The answer could be very subjective but according to me, better responsive system and co-ordination between different government departments in order to service the citizens are two essential components of the kind of smartness that we are talking about.

So, are we talking about technology? Yes! up to much extent. As technology solutions can enable better collaboration and have the capability to offer better intuitive analysis for delivering citizen specific services.

Tech giants such as IBM joins the growing league of global IT firms that plan to step up their investments in India to take advantage of the digital plans of the Narendra Modi-led government. Cisco has already signed an agreement to transform Bangalore Electronic City into a smart city in partnership with Electronics City Industries Association.

Similarly SmartCity Dubai plans to tie up with the Madhya Pradesh government for a similar project to be located between Bhopal and Indore.

We must understand that apart from technology investments, the most important factor of making such visionary step is to change the mindset. There are a lot of changes are needed. Self introspection of common citizens are very important.

Indians are known as smart people in other parts of the world, but a lot needs to fall in place to make India a smarter place.