Part of the Golden Triangle (Mumbai-Pune-Nashik), the Nashik Smart City proposal had a total of 50 identified projects, which were funded through different mechanisms. Anil Tadkod, General Manager IT, shares more on the progress of these projects… Benefit of events like SU to India’s Smart City Mission This is a very good platform to connect. I have learnt a lot on the best practices adopted by other cities. The event has also allowed us to connect with various OEMs, vendors and consultants and interact with them to discuss ideas not only for the present but for the future. Pace of progress under the Smart Cities Mission The pace has been a little slow due to the pandemic. As the city is a religious tourism hub, ABD has been a little slow. We are doing utilities, underground utilities, roadworks and more, which takes time. But we have completed 60 per cent of our projects and the rest will be completed in the next six to eight months. Upcoming tenders and projects in the city We have floated a tender that is a combination of three different projects. They are supervisory control and data acquisition (Scada) projects in which we are constructing two water treatment plants, upgrading the existing elevated water reservoirs with Scada meters and making a user-friendly dashboard for the water department. We are also implementing 13,000 smart water meters for commercial establishments. A project that has finished technical evaluation is the construction of a smart school. We are making 656 state-of-the-art smart classrooms. Another project is an emergency response centre as the city is quite prone to natural disasters. It will be equipped with drones, evacuation centres and video conferencing for all departments. Dream project I am involved in the installation of smart water meters, the Scada projects, and the Nashik Safe and Smart City project. The Nashik Safe and Smart City project is a collaboration between the Nashik Municipal Corporation and the Nashik Police Department. We are putting 800 cameras across the city, flood sensors in the rivers, 21 environmental sensors, 21 public announcement systems and emergency call bells for citizens and pelican signals for citizens to change traffic signals, and converting 40 traffic junctions into adaptive traffic control with AI. Thoughts on 18 per cent GST on Smart Cities Until now we did not have any issues in terms of GST; only the vendors used to charge GST to us. But now this will have a setback and require us to rethink our strategy. This will impact the overall budget available to us – because when funding is made available, we are always asked if it is inclusive or exclusive of GST. Biggest achievement and challenge in the Smart Cities Mission I will start with challenges first. There has to be a single-window policy. Currently, getting numerous approvals is a nightmare for us and the vendors. The resulting delay leads to cost and time overruns and wastage of resources and demotivates the vendors. As for achievements, from an urban perspective, we have integrated technology, built infrastructure, and undertaken citizen-specific initiatives. There is, of course, a long way to go in terms of SOPs and pace of the projects.