Government to utilise geo-spatial technology to build smart cities

HYDERABAD: The Centre would extensively utilise geo-spatial technology in realising its vision to build 100 smart cities across the country, Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said today.

"Cities in the past were built on riverbanks. They are now built along highways. But in the future, they will be built based on availability of optical fibre networks and next-generation infrastructure.

"Our Government's vision is to build 100 smart cities across the country. And Geospatial Science & Technology (GS&T) is the means to realise this vision," he said, addressing a conference of Geospatial World Forum.

Geo-spatial technology (GST) makes use of satellite navigation systems and computer databases called the Geographical Information System (GIS) to create, capture, store and retrieve geographic and spatial information of any place, he said.

"GST enables efficient, effective, relevant and integrated planning through the use of real time data and data analytics."

A common thread running between the "path-breaking schemes" initiated by the NDA Government in the urban development sphere, including Smart City Programme, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Urban), Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban), AMRUT and HRIDAY, is the extensive use of ICT and geo-spatial information systems, he said.

Under the Housing for All (Urban) scheme, the Centre envisioned that individual houses should be tracked through geo-tagged photographs for effective monitoring. The Urban Development Ministry has entered into an MoU with the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Hyderabad for this, he said.

Under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Urban), the Ministry has launched a mobile application to easily locate, use and rate toilets, he said.