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India documents landmark smart city projects to capture best practice
One of the aims of the Smart Cities and Academia Towards Action programme is to provide opportunities for engagement on urban development projects to students.
As part of its Smart Cities Mission, India is launching a programme to document 75 landmark smart city projects.
The Smart Cities and Academia Towards Action & Research (SAAR) programme is a joint initiative by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) and leading Indian academic institutions.
The programme marks the 75th anniversary of India’s independence, with the idea to showcase country’s best practices and on-ground achievements.
Best practices
Under the programme, 15 premier architecture and planning institutes will be working with smart cities to capture learnings from best practices, provide opportunities for engagement on urban development projects to students, and enable real-time information flow between urban practitioners and academia.
Since the start of the mission in 2015, 100 Smart Cities has been developing a total of 5,151 projects with an investment of Rs 2,05,018 crore and those documented will become lighthouse projects to other aspiring cities.
The 75 multi-sectoral projects have been identified across 47 smart cities, including Agra, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Chennai, Jaipur, Kochi, Nagpur, New Town Kolkata, Pune and Thanjavur.
The compendium will act as a first point of reference for future research in the field, help disseminate learnings from projects under the mission, act as a repository for urban projects, and contribute to dissemination of best practices and peer-to-peer learning.
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The partner institutes documenting the projects include inter alia Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, Centre for Environment Planning and Technology, Ahmedabad, Jamia Milia Islamia, Delhi, and School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal.
The institutes will document the outcomes of these projects and how they are impacting the lives of urban citizens. Team of students and mentors will visit the cities to better understand the projects throughout January-February 2022.
The compendium will act as a first point of reference for future research in the field, help disseminate learnings from projects under the mission
Work will include field Investigation, data analysis and documentation as well as national research methodology workshops for the participating students. The compendium of projects is due to be published by June 2022.
In December 2021, it was reported that the Smart Cities Mission timeline had been extended until June 2023, with the Covid-19 pandemic cited as one of the reasons. It means that the 100 cities selected for the programme will have until this time to complete their projects.
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How does the SAAR programme enhance student engagement in urban development?What methods are used to document best practices in smart city projects?How do documented projects influence governance and citizen participation?In what ways do academic institutions contribute to smart city planning?How will the compendium support future urban research and peer learning?
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