Bhubaneswar Smart City Strategy and Implementation

India’s Ministry of Urban Development put forth a Smart City Challenge to develop a conceptual plan for improving a city and its residents’ lives with smart solutions. One hundred cities across India were chosen to compete and provide an area-based proposal with a unique vision, mission, and plan. IBI Group supported the development of a Smart City Challenge proposal for the city of Bhubaneswar, leveraging its global experience in the fields of transportation, planning, design, technology, and intelligence. Working with the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC), State of Odisha, India, IBI Group prepared its Smart City Plan which was adjudged the first rank out of 98 cities in the country.

The proposal emphasized comprehensive development of the city, taking into consideration mobility, active transportation, energy, water, waste disposal, and integrated infrastructure. The effort required extensive consultation with local residents in order to better understand the needs of the city, with initiatives such as conferences, solution contests, and collaboration labs to engage and empower the public. An implementation strategy was prepared that identified key projects, addressed organizational and financial structuring, and determined institutional arrangements for raising capital.

Establishing Bhubaneswar’s Urban Knowledge Centre and Intelligent City Operations and Management Centre.

IBI has established the Program Management Unit with more than 15 staff, including sector experts, in the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA). The Bhubaneswar Urban Knowledge Centre (BUKC) will assist the BDA in bringing its Smart City strategies together. It will provide professional resources and service to create an in-house knowledge resource centre with a physical presence in the BDA, and support the delivery of cutting-edge expertise in five key domains:

• Child-friendly Smart City Centre
• Transportation Planning
• Urban Design & Placemaking
• Smart Cities and Systems Integration
• Communications, Capacity Building & Knowledge Management

Additionally, an Intelligent City Operations and Management Centre (ICOMC) will oversee multiple city sub-systems including Traffic Management, Parking, Bus/Transit Operations, Common Fare Card, Smart Utilities, Emergency Response and City Incident Management. Furthermore, a number of citizen engagement initiatives such as city portals, open data, telecommunications and city wifi zones will help residents and businesses become integrated within the community.