As seen in many countries across the globe, smart cities in India too have been playing a major role and leading the way in the country’s battle against the COVID-19 pandemic, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company. Despite delays in the country’s smart city projects due to paucity of funds, smart have been able to effectively tap technologies like IoT/sensors, tele-healthcare, data and analytics, and contribute significantly to India’s fight against COVID-19.

With the increasing number of coronavirus infected patients in India, smart city control rooms are forming the first line of defence against the virus at several places in the country. Control centres form the core of the smart city initiative and are essential for surveillance, emergency and clinical command situations, integrated traffic management and disaster management. Smart cities with functional control rooms have employed the facility for real-time tracking and analysis of the healthcare crisis, with assistance from private companies.

Smart city projects worth close to Rs 1 lakh crore (€12 billion) have come to a halt due to the lockdown, rendering tens of thousands of workers jobless and causing large-scale damage of building materials, which could significantly escalate project costs, according to official sources. Even before the lockdown, most projects under the Smart City Mission were running behind schedule, with the 2019-20 deadline for completing as many as 5,151 projects worth over Rs 2 lakh crore (€24 billion) having been widely missed. 2023-end now seems to be the earliest date for completing the mission.

According to sources from the Ministry of Urban Development, only 1,582 projects costing Rs. 26,550 crore (€3 billion), (just 13% of the total projects) have been completed so far. While projects worth Rs 41,000 crore (€5 billion) are in tendering or early stages, Rs 96,370 were under implementation, when the lockdown hit them.