Integrated Command and Control Centres

Context:

During a two-day Smart Cities Conference in Surat, Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister that 80 Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCCs), an integral component of the Smart Cities Mission, have already been set up, while the remaining 20 would be completed by August 15 this year.

Relevance:

GS II- Government Policies and Interventions

Dimensions of the Article:

1. About Integrated Command and Control Centre
2. About Smart Cities Mission
3. What is the current status of the Smarts Cities Mission?

About Integrated Command and Control Centre

• The Smart Cities Mission includes setting up ICCCs for each such city as a vital step.
• These ICCCs are designed to enable authorities to monitor the statups of various amenities in real time.
• Initially aimed at controlling and monitoring water and power supply, sanitation, traffic movement, integrated building management, city connectivity and Internet infrastructure, these centres have since evolved to monitor various other parameters.
• The ICCCs are now also linked to the CCTNS (Crime and Criminal Tracking Networks and Systems) network under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
• The ICCC acts of a smart city acts as a “nerve centre” for operations management.
• It processes a complex and large pool of data sets at an aggregated level. For example, it is now the go-to source for integrated traffic management monitoring.
• The ICCC is the nodal point of availability of all online data and information relating to smart services included in a smart city, such as like LED street lighting, CCTV surveillance cameras, air quality sensors, smart parking system, WiFi, electricity and water supply and billing, GIS, e-hospitals, property tax management, estate management, engineering systems, asset management systems, and other services.
• These ICCCs are spread across various states that have been developing Smart Cities, with states such as Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat leading in terms of the total number of ICCCs set up.
• During the pandemic, they also served as war-rooms for Covid-19 management.

How did the ICCCs help in management of Covid-19?

• During the peak of the first wave, when countries were struggling to figure out ways of combating the virus, the government used the ICCCs as war-rooms for managing the outbreak, with real-time surveillance and monitoring of districts across the country that were affected by the coronavirus disease.
• Converted into war-rooms, the smart cities’ ICCCs used the central data dashboard and provided information about the status of Covid-positive cases in various administrative zones of these cities, officials aware of the exercise said.
• The war-rooms were also used for tracking people under quarantine and suspected Covid-19 cases.

About Smart Cities Mission

• The Smart Cities Mission aims at developing 100 cities, which were shortlisted, into self-sustainable urban settlements.
• The mission was launched on June 25, 2015 and was projected as one aimed at transforming the process of urban development in the country.
• Among its strategic components is ‘area-based development’, which includes city improvement (retrofitting), city renewal (redevelopment) and city extension (greenfield development), plus a pan-city initiative in which ‘smart solutions’ are applied covering larger parts of the city.
• Key focus areas of the scheme include
  • Construction of walkways,
  • Pedestrian crossings,
  • Cycling tracks,
  • Efficient waste-management systems,
  • Integrated traffic management and assessment.
• The scheme also assesses various indices to track urban development such as the Ease of Living Index, Municipal Performance Index, City GDP framework, Climate Smart Cities assessment framework, etc.

What is the current status of the Smarts Cities Mission?

• The ambitious project, announced by Prime Minister in 2015, had an initial deadline of 2021 for the first lot of 20 smart cities out of the 100 selected.
• Although the project was announced in 2015, the cities were selected over a period of two years between 2016 and 2018, each with a deadline of completion within five years from the time of their selection.
• On the recommendation of NITI Aayog, the timeline was extended last year until 2023 due to delays caused by the pandemic.
• In its assessment, the NITI Aayog noted that progress on sustainable development goals (SDGs) needed to be worked upon, and recommended the extended deadline after noting substantial delays caused by the pandemic. “The period of implementation of SCM has been extended to June 2023,” the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs informed Parliament in December last year.
• According to current Ministry data, the SCM has so far covered over 140 public-private partnerships), 340 ‘smart roads’, 78 ‘vibrant public places’, 118 ‘smart water’ projects and over 63 solar projects.

-Source: Indian Express