How far has Bengaluru progressed to become a Smart City?

What is a smart city? How smart is India in building smart cities? Where does Bengaluru stand in becoming a smart city? We discuss these along with the features of a smart city.

Bengaluru is one of the forerunners in aspects of being converted into a smart city in support of the views and ambitions of the present Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi. The city has already taken initiatives to become a smart city which is evident in its effort to offer smart homes which use extensive technology and proposes to make life simpler and more comfortable with the reduction of human effort and increasing the safety, security, energy efficiency and environment friendliness. Some of the smart cities of the world are Chicago, Boston, Barcelona and Stockholm.

What is a smart city?

There are many definitions of a smart city but there is no absolute definition or an end point but the city should have a process or a series of steps by which the living condition of the city improves and becomes resilient to unfavorable changes and thus can respond to newer challenges, be it human or natural in a quicker manner. A smart city harnesses technology, human effort, society and the functions of the government to bring about the following characteristics namely: smart environment, smart mobility, smart citizens, smart living, smart economy and above all smart governance.

The concept of smart cities has already picked up with the construction of smart townships with few builders and developers constructing projects with intelligent economic, social and physical infrastructure. A smart city does not only mean having a strong infrastructural framework with intelligent communication systems and established social infrastructure but it also depends on the homes of the city which should also be smart as well to keep a tie with the communicative network of the city.

How smart is a smart city?

With all these stories one may be wondering that a smart city is some kind of a wonderland with monitoring systems all over. Let’s find out how smart the features are in a smart city.

The Smart Features of a Smart City

Smart Planning: The smart city has all amenities like workplaces, hospitals, retail shops and outlets, schools, sports academy all under one roof. Proper planning of a city ensures that more space is availed by the citizens with added facilities decreasing the need to move out of one’s comfort zones.

Smart Transport: There are arrangements of smart transportation within the township which minimizes carbon emissions with few features like electric vehicles and bicycle lanes to move about within the township.

Smart Water Management: Efforts to reserve water resources through rain water harvesting, clean drinking water, water recycling plants for watering landscapes and for sewage use inside the campus.

Smarter Waste management: Organic waste converters and other resource management techniques are used which converts the waste of the township into manure which can be further used in landscaping or gardening or agriculture and wastes are also segregated for recycling.

Smart Energy Management: Usage of solar and LED street lights, intelligent systems and mechanisms for monitoring the electricity usage and consumption are ensured for an efficient management of energy and resources. A power back up system for the common areas is also a feature of smart townships to ensure uninterrupted power supply.

Smart Homes: Smart towns consist of smart homes which also have monitoring systems of power and all the gadgets of the house can be remotely controlled with an intelligent security system.

USA has 8 million smart homes and with the passage of time India too has caught up with the trend with the number of smart homes buyers  increasing each day.