COVID-19: An Opportunity for Smart and Sustainable Cities in India

Fatewar, Meet; Vaishali

The major portion of the world’s population, i.e. around 55%, resides in urban settlements, which is expected to increase to 68% by 2050. Economic development is always given more preference over environmental sustainability. The COVID-19 pandemic is the result of ignorance to have an adequate number of basic infrastructure facilities including healthcare infrastructure and less importance to sustainable environment. The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases are more in the high-density settlements both at global and national level. Therefore, it becomes crucial to develop Indian cities, which are sustainable and capable to fulfil the needs of the citizens by providing smart solutions. A smart city provides smart services to the residents by using Information and Communication Technology, Information Technology, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning as an integrated part of governance for development. Hence, it is essential to develop smart sustainable cities followed by smart regions, which are well synchronised with the digital technology, as a precautionary measure before an epidemic becomes a pandemic through spatial-statistical analysis. The aforesaid digital model of smart cities is capable of reducing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by analysing the real-time data, which can further be extended to smart regions.