BW Smart Cities: What differentiates SmartCity from similar urban planning projects in the past?
Gigo Joseph: While urban planning often focuses on the development of the economy and its people, SmartCity places greater focus on protecting the interests of the society and the environment, whilst pursuing economic growth. We have taken special measures and implemented schemes that will help enhance and sustain the local eco-system, address wider societal needs and leverage technology to add value to everyday living.
BWSC: What are some of the components of smart city planning?
GJ: The SmartCity project takes into account three major components – economic, social and environmental sustainability. Establishing a live/work/play balance is a major focus for us to help achieve social sustainability, providing an urban residential community with everything from education to entertainment within reach. It seeks to achieve economic growth by creating over 90,000 direct jobs by 2020. Environmental sustainability via LEED certified green buildings, pedestrian circulation and bicycle routes and rapid transport systems like the metro help reduce carbon emission. Since optimising energy consumption is a key goal, it also includes power generation from non-conventional energy sources, rain-water harvesting, zero-waste discharge and reuse of grey water, among others.
SmartCity follows a Smart Digital Plan – designed to exploit technology to offer more structured living conditions to its residents. This Smart Digital Plan operations centre will monitor a wide variety of data addressing: safety, security, building operations and maintenance, water and waste management, traffic flow and transit services.
BWSC: Will projects like this be gated communities/islands? How inclusive will they be for non- residents?
GJ: Let me take the example of SmartCity Kochi, which is unlike other gated communities because it offers opportunities for employment and trade wherein 70 percent of the income generated will be earned by the local workforce. Furthermore, there are facilities like a mall, hotel, school and recreational areas, all of which are open to those residing outside SmartCity as well. We don’t intend to be restrictive but reformative in nature. In the past, the development of IT parks in a city has inevitably led to exploiting limited resources leading to power and water scarcity, traffic congestion, etc. A city’s economic development comes with its own share of repercussions and our objective is to provide sustenance on our own resources and provide quality living to the residents and employees without hampering the inhabitants of Kochi, while investing in Kochi’s development from a Tier 2 city to an emerging Tier 1 market for international business.
BWSC: What has been your experience in setting up SCK in India?
GJ: Setting up a project as big as SmartCity Kochi can be daunting without a few necessary elements. Fortunately we received widespread support from the government and businesses – from developers to educational institutes – in building this from the ground up, in a predominantly IT-driven city. However, the key to this rather fluid experience has been our master plan. A good master plan allows the entire infrastructure (physical, social, technological) to be in sync with the commercial development and is the key to getting timely approvals. The international expertise brought in by Dubai Holding and Dubai’s longstanding association with knowledge-based companies provides Kochi a well-connected market to emerge as a knowledge hub in India.
BWSC: Many countries like the US, Spain, Singapore and Japan, to name a few, are seeking to partner with states and cities for the Government’s smart cities vision. How can these collaborations help the development of smarter cities?
GJ: The concept of a smart city is not to build islands of quality living for select people. It is to build growth opportunities towards a better life for the inhabitants of a city. In time, this development should mitigate excessive migration to metros, thereby helping Tier 2 cities develop further, sustain themselves and overcome development restrictions to allow more cities to do the same within India.
