SHOULD A SMART CITY BE A SAFE CITY FIRST?

The Government of India launched the 100 Smart City Mission on June 25, 2015, where in 100 India urban cities would be developed into Smart Cities. Given this information, the first question which needs to be answered is what is a smart city? According to the website for Smart Cities Mission, there is no clear definition of a smart city. It varies from city to city and country to country according to the development, willingness to change, resources and aspirations of the citizen. Some basic features of development in smart cities are: 1. Effective land use 2. Housing opportunities for all 3. Security of the citizens 4. Preservation and development of open spaces 5. Integrated transport options 6. Citizen friendly Governance There are certain stages of development for a smart city to come into existence; of which the very basic level is to equip the city with surveillance. Though surveillance is the primary need for a society to keep its citizens safe; a good number of cities in India lack this basic infrastructure. Another useful objective of having surveillance in place is that the data collected through technology surveillance mechanisms can be collated and shared with other departments engaged in maintaining the physical and social conditions of the city viz. public works department, health department, water department, electricity department and so on. The data can be processed to devise basic solutions to address basic human needs.