Work Begins on ICT Infrastructure for DMIC’s Dholera Smart City

AHMEDABAD:
Work has commenced on implementation of the Information & Communications Technology (ICT) plans for Dholera, a major greenfield Smart City coming up in Phase I of the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) project.
Top officials of the DMIC Development Corporation (DMICDC) and Dholera Special Investment Regional Development Authority (DSIRDA), which are jointly promoting Dholera, reviewed the detailed plans for the ICT infrastructure, which has been modeled on the world’s most advanced cities such as Singapore and London, with even higher efficiency benchmarks and incorporating global best practices.
Wipro Ltd, which has been awarded the contract for ICT consultancy work, outlined the state-of-the-art design for City Integrated Operations Centre, E-Governance, City applications (including analytics), Data Centre, City-wide network and City dashboards, at the workshop.
“Dholera’s ICT Infrastructure will be a game changer in terms of how smart cities all over the world function. We intend it to set an example for efficient, technology-enabled administration of a city, infrastructure linkages and quality of life for residents,” said Alkesh Kumar Sharma, the CEO and Managing Director of DMICDC.
Dholera is one of eight industrial regions planned in the first phase of the DMIC project. The city is being developed in a phased manner and is expected to be functional by 2019 with several manufacturing units and a population of around 100,000 people.
‘This marks the start of building ‘smart components’ of Dholera,’ said Ajay Bhadoo, CEO, DICDL. “There will be no other city like Dholera in all of India. It is truly a landmark project,” he added.
At the heart of Dholera’s ICT network will be a City Integration Operation Centre (CIOC) which will synchronise all functions, including traffic management, safety and security, emergency response, utility services, telecommunications and civic administration.
It will be integrated with regional and national data bases including the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) for better law enforcement and rapid response.
Dholera will have e-Governance systems and city applications for local administration and facilitation, transport, healthcare, education, urban planning, city asset management and citizen’s portal.
A “Citizens Interaction Centre” will provide one stop service and will have standardised processes to enable civic authorities to follow regulatory framework, manage approvals, budgets and provide host of other citizen services.
City-wide sensors and highly-secure, scalable networks will collect information, and Dashboards that combine real time data from various sources will help in planning.
Dholera will use analytics for efficient budgeting, to determine which areas to target for improvement of infrastructure amenities etc. The city will have special process applications for water management; to assess quality, detect overflows and reduce wastage. It will provide electricity 24X7 and will use ICT to manage power usage and lower costs.
An advanced Data Center will be the cloud hub of the region, offering state-of-the-art computing platform to city administrators, government agencies, residents and businesses.
The total proposed project area for Dholera is approximately 920 sq. km and it is a node strategically located near the industrial cities of Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat and Bhavnagar.
Since the entire trunk infrastructure cannot be implemented in a one go, a phased approach has been adopted for Dholera and an Activation Area of 22.5 sq. Km has been identified which would act as catalyst for further investments and will provide a base for taking up development of the remaining area.