Gandhinagar: India's First Smart City

Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation is India's first smart city to launch citizen-centric smart city services like city-wide Wi-Fi, IP surveillance, smart street lighting, centralized command centre, digital signages and smart call centre

Gandhinagar has become India's first smart city to provide citizen-centric smart city services. The smart city services were designed, built and managed by Sterlite Tech and conceived by Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation under the Swarnim Jayanti Mukhya Mantri Saheri Vikas Yojana with a grant of Rs.22 crore. The project was awarded by GMC to Sterlite Tech on January 15, 2016 and completed in September 2016.   

The smart services project includes services like city-wide Wi-Fi, IP surveillance, smart street lighting, environment sensors, digital display, speed & face detection, automatic number plate recognition system, public address system, smart call centre and a centralized command centre to monitor and control all activities.

Gandhinagar Smart City

Wi-Fi    750 Access Points installed covering 75% area  
Smart Lightning System    1,000
IP Cameras    209 
Public Address System    13 
Environmental Sensor    5   
Digital Signage    5 
Source: VARINDIA

The high-speed Wi-Fi service covers 75 per cent geographical area of Gandhinagar municipal area and has 125,000 citizens already registered and offers 30 minutes free Internet service for registered users. As per the records of GMC, around 400-500 people are daily registering for Wi-Fi services.   
To regulate the city traffic and for safety of its citizens, GMC has installed 207 cameras which include: PTZ camera can click 360-degree photograph (means photo of all directions); fix camera can be fixed at a specific angle to click photographs of the defined road; speed detection camera can detect the speed of the vehicle in motion; ANPR Camera (Automatic Number Plate Recognition Camera) helps in recording the vehicle number plate, so that in case of violation of any law, the violator can be caught; face detection camera can help in capturing a criminal who enters Gandhinagar municipal boundary. 
CCTV Surveillance helps in monitoring all activities within the city. All the records of the services are kept at the SP office located in Sector 27 which is the designated centralized command and control centre for the Gandhinagar Smart City project. 

The CCTV surveillance helps in live monitoring of transport as well as the citizens' activity of all city roads due to which, at the time of any accident, all the related information along with police detection information can be made easily available. 

The smart tweet lightning system will help in 30-per cent electricity saving for GMC. Places where digital signages have been installed, Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation will give information related to government programmes and other important information. Over and above, citizens will be provided information related to environment forecast. 

D. N. Modi, Commissioner, Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation, said, “The launch of smart city services in Gandhinagar has got us closer to realizing the Digital India vision of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. With this, Gandhinagar becomes the first smart city model.”

The smart services will help the government deliver digital services to its citizen and encourage them to avail seamless connectivity, security, cost savings and system transparency for better governance,” added Modi. 

Pravin Agarwal, Vice-Chairman, Sterlite Technologies, said, “The smart services project will set a benchmark in digital infrastructure and smart living for citizens. We are proud to be associated with GMC.” 

"The deployment of smart services through the urban infrastructure will address essential administrative needs of the citizens and empower them with easy access to critical information," added Modi. 

The deployment of smart services at Gandhinagar has transformed the urban infrastructure that addresses the needs of its citizens by addressing administrative challanges to improve effciecy. It empowers them with easy access to information through Wi-Fi services and smart mobile app, ensures public security with IP surveillance, reduces electricity cost with smart street lighting, keeps the citizens updated on weather and pollution information through environment sensors, public announcement and advertisement through digital signages. 

The system has 24/7 call centre which addresses citizens complaints and queries. All the smart services can be controlled and monitored through the central command centre. All these smart services will definitely help in providing better governance to 2 lakh Ahmedabad citizens by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. 
Pravin Prashant 
pravin@varindia.com