Better planning, designing must for smart cities

September 29, 2014

Smart cities are not just smart in providing services but the very basics of planning, designing and construction should also conform to the standards. Keeping this in mind an awareness programme was organized by Geospatial Media and Communications, dedicated to advocating and promoting judicious usage of geospatial technologies in building smart cities, here on Wednesday.

The Delhi-based company has started a series of presentations in tier-II cities, identified to be developed as smart cities in near future and Ranchi was the fourth in the series following Guwahati, Dehradun and Bhubaneswar. Geospatial media director (Asia Pacific) Prashant Joshi said they have been advocating smart planning, designing, building and maintenance for which modern tools are used right from the stage of mapping to enhance concept and make the projects cost effective.

“The plans, three-dimensional maps are drawn with the help of digital data obtained through GIS and building information management, chances of error are minimized,” he said.

Ranchi mayor Asha Lakra appreciated the presentations and, along with a team of ward councilors, agreed to use best-available technologies while making the plan for Ranchi as a smart city. “We would like to make Ranchi the smartest city in the region and for that purpose we need to know the modern technologies available globally,” she said. Attending the presentation, principal secretary of the department of information and technology, N N
Sinha, agreed that technology effectively cuts down on wastage and proper planning could speed up work execution.

“As spatial data forms the very foundation of all planned human activities, technologies such as GIS, GPS, satellite data, surveying, mapping, laser scanning, photgrammetry, and others, are significantly proving to be critical as decision support tools that can decisively help in planning and informed decision making in these initiations,” Joshi said. Citing examples of some of the projects like Lvasa and airports being built in the country he said all such construction are aided by 3D mapping based on spatial data.

Experts from Mecon and Coal India Limited, which have been widely using spatial data in engineering designs and mining, shared their experiences of incorporation of modern technology and tools in project execution.

Technologies such as GIS, GPS, satellite data, surveying, mapping and laser scanning are proving to be as critical as support tools that help in planning and decision making while designing smart cities.

Source:Times of India