Esri to support 100 smart cities project in India

Esri, the international supplier of Geographic Information System (GIS) software mapping technology, could be set to play be big role in the Indian governments plan to develop 100 smart cities.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration announced in August ambitious plans to spend US$1.13 billion (£690 million) on building cities resilient to climate change across the country which is following in the footsteps of other countries in Asia including China and Singapore.

GIS developer Esri is aiming to expand its operations in India and its GIS technology and applications could be crucial to the smart cities development.

GIS software captures, store, analyses, manages, and presents spatial and geographical data and is used for environmental evaluation for urban land-use planning.

Jack Dangermond, Esri global president, said: "In India, many customers are building their geographic knowledge base. There is a larger realisation with the people talking about GIS as a platform across government agencies. Our job is to support these agencies and government by providing them best technology and help them in their vision of building a better India".

GIS contains a spatial database, representing aspects of cultural and physical environment of a particular geographic region together with procedures for analysing combinations of attributes and generating graphical products.

Esri India already works with government, private companies and educational institutions, covering various areas including telecommunications, disaster management, transportation, municipal management, natural resources and building/designing.

According to Esri India president Agendra Kumar, they already control 70 per cent market share in the country and use of GIS is increasing rapidly.

Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced that the government’s investment would go towards “developing 100 satellite towns” surrounding large cities.

SmartCity Kochi will be home to one of India’s largest business parks and is the second city in the smart-city global network.

Japan is providing support of US$4.5 billion in the first phase of projects through lending by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC).

A smart city must have three of the five infrastructure requirements - energy management, water management, transport and traffic, safety and security and solid waste management. At the same time, it must have three of the five application domains - healthcare, education, inclusion, participative governance and community services.