Smart City Operations Centre, a project under Smart City Innovation Centre (SCIC) was inaugurated on 25 June 2017 by the Chief Guest Shri.V.P. Singh Badnore, Governor of Punjab and UT Administrator, at PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh. The inauguration took place in the presence of Smt. Kirron Kher - MP Chandigarh, Smt. Asha Kumari Jaswal- Mayor MC, Sh. Parimal Rai, Advisor to Administrator, Sh. Manoj Khatri, Joint Commissioner MCC, Kavita Singh, CEO Smart City Chandigarh, Sh. Anurag Aggarwal, Home Secretary, Dr. Manoj K. Arora, Director PEC and other dignitaries.
Shri.V.P. Singh Badnore talked about the importance and need of a smart city by referring interesting anecdotes. He pointed out that the biggest challenge that the society was facing is urbanisation. He also suggested that along with taking care of senior citizens latest technologies could be provided to the new generation to keep up with the requirements of today's world.
Smt. Kirron Kher congratulated everyone on reaching this milestone, regarding it as an achievement. Further, she expressed her concern for the elder section of the society who might not be well versed with the latest technologies. She also suggested that all the other existing apps serving similar purpose could be brought under a single umbrella.
A short presentation was given by Mrs. Kavita Singh who provided a holistic view and the future of Smart City. She also highlighted the objectives of the project, the primary objective being the improvement in the quality of life of citizens. She talked about how this project is successfully implemented in various sectors including solid waste management, power, healthcare, education, transport, efficient urban mobility and safety and security of citizens. She pointed out some of the promising smart solutions including effective service delivery, smart parking, Single Citizen Admin Interface, effective monitoring and immediate feedback.
Further Dr. Manoj K Arora appreciated the efforts made by active collaboration between Technology and Research institution (PEC), Smart Cities SPV (Government) and Industry eco system. The project, besides the support from PEC and Chandigarh administration, also has committed support from Punjab Govt, Haryana Government and MOUD.
Sh. Purushottam Kaushik, Sr. Advisor- McKinsey and Adjunct Faculty, PEC briefed about the three key objectives of the project which are: To establish a living lab and Urban observatory for Smart city solutions, Skill development and Capacity building for Smart cities, Innovation Centre and Start Up Hub for Smart Cities. He also mentioned the various systems which are influenced by this project viz. Solid Waste Management, Smart Traffic, Smart Environment, Smart Lighting and Public Transport. With this inauguration, the project has achieved its first milestone of establishing a "Living Lab and Urban observatory" and "Innovation Centre" at PEC campus with active collaboration between Chandigarh Smart City SPV and large Global MNCs and leaders of Smart city solutions.
After the introduction of the various smart solutions, their demonstration was carried out by CISCO and PEC team who gave an extensive insight on each of their smart products. Starting with the demonstration of Smart Lighting, they went on illustrating other projects that included Air Quality Index, Real time monitoring of bus services, working and efficiency of bore wells per day and Waste Management System.
The solutions include partnership with large Global Smart City Organizations like Cisco which is providing Integrated command control Platform for smart city analytics, Bosch offering Smart Air quality monitoring of cities, 3M providing Smart Road signage and Variable messaging displays for Traffic management, Wipro Lighting and Havells Lighting that are concerned with Automated street lighting having 9 levels of intensity variations depending on Ambient light conditions and traffic conditions, Zykrr providing Online citizen feedback solution and LinkStreet that offers Automated and high productivity Mobile Field staff management solutions.
The ceremony came to an end with the National Anthem followed by a short press conference in which the dignitaries interacted with the gathering including PEC faculty and industry participants and discussed the solutions in more details.
