Dholera to soon host one of country's four smart cities

Imagine living in a city where you don’t get honked; no cops to harass you at crossroads and yet, traffic glides as smoothly as hot spoon over butter; Internet services will be provided to every home like water and electricity. Though it seems more like Plato’s theory of an ideal state, this ideal city will soon be a reality — just 100-odd kms away from the hustle and bustle of Ahmedabad — at Dholera.

A part of Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), the industrial city of Dholera will also become ‘smart city’ by converging next generation technologies across infrastructure sectors. Spread across 903 sq km, Dholera is all set to become one of the first smart cities of India. The city, out of which, 540 sq km area will see a huge development and townships are expected to be ready by end of this decade, is to be developed in six phases – the first phase of which is about 150 sq km and the construction work could potentially start within a year.

As a smart city, like those in the western countries, real time control and governance of Dholera city over a period of time too will be possible from a command or control room.  

Before the dream city is built, Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation Ltd (DMICDC), the developer of DMIC, will build up the basic (trunk) infrastructure first, for which the total cost is expected to be over Rs3,000 crore. Global company known for ICT technologies and routers, Cisco has already finalised the information & communication technology (ICT) master plan on ICT integration into the civil infrastructure. Cisco’s ICT master plan includes four smart cities proposed under the DMIC project — one each at Dholera in Gujarat, Shendra in Maharashtra, Manesar in Haryana and Khushkera in Rajasthan.

Through ICT, monitoring and integrating of water management, road infrastructure, fiber networks, street lighting will be managed from a central location, informed Managing Director, Emerging Solutions Advisory, Asia Pacific and Japan, Cisco, Aamer Azeemi.

Elaborating on the benefits of a smart city, Azeemi said that through skill development training under education, will help the local population get benefit of employment. “By connecting all primary and extended healthcare facilities, the city will have proper healthcare facilities; an interactive map built in the vernacular language will enable ease of use and navigation among the transport system in the region which will add to mobility solutions across these regions. As part of the design control document, we will provide internet services to homes as simply as providing water and electricity in all buildings, enabling connectivity to the network,” he said.

“In first phase, we have already completed ICT Master Plan for trunk infrastructure which will have integration of latest technology into the civil infrastructure. In second phase, provision of citizen services such as public grievance redressals, land record management, single window clearance for people who would like to set up services in these regions and much more will be done,” said Azeemi.

He, however, denied sharing investment details for the development of the smart city at Dholera. “For Dholera city, the central government has moved to the next step. They have appointed a programme manager for the new cities PMNC, whose responsibility is to take it to the next level, take the geographic master plan, create certain designs for all of those utilities that they have identified and start to tender out various packages. The city is to be developed in six phases – the first phase of which is about 150 sq km. Construction work on the city could potentially start within a year,” he said.

Talking about all the four cities, Azeemi expects development of the townships to take place by end of this decade. “The cities would be launched with the development of townships which are envisaged to be completed by the end of 2019,” he said.

Our attempts to connect to CEO & MD of DMICDC, Amitabh Kant, for his comments went in vain.