Schneider Electric Gears Up for Challenges of Indian Smart Cities

Schneider Electric Infrastructure is gearing up to take on the challenges in handling Prime Ministers’s pet project of 100 smart cities in India.

At a seminar on ‘Changing India: A Smart City Revolution’, held in Bangalore on October 9, 2014, Schneider Electric President and Managing Director for India Anil Choudhry said it affords an opportunity for integrating technologies.

“Schneider is well positioned to contribute to the government’s vision of creating 100 Smart Cities." We  are already working on smart projects and is serious about the fact that smart infrastructure will form the backbone of any smart city.“Schneider’s experience as a developer of Smart Cities is impeccable. We can integrate technologies in brownfield surroundings and enmesh loopholes to achieve energy efficiency,” Chaudhry said.  

For Schneider it is necessary to identify the building blocks for making the government’s ‘Smart Cities’ project a reality. Such a city should weigh the socio-economic necessities, inadequacies of the country’s infrastructure and administrative mechanisms, and the skills that will guide the city planners, administrators and proponents to build and manage Smart Cities. The seminar saw the participation of speakers from a plethora of fields who put forward their views regarding building a successful smart city model for future India. 

The seminar saw the participation of speakers from a plethora of fields who put forward their views regarding building a successful smart city model for future India. In the course of the discussion, Nilesh Purey, Vice President, ICT, Gujarat International Finance Tec-City shared his views on the skill sets that will enable city planners drive a Smart City project. 

He said, “We need to develop good skills sets and learn from the West, especially in the areas of administration and municipality. This is something that we have successfully implemented at GIFT. Every employee at GIFT has visited at least two countries to understand and learn best practices in this area.” 

The smart city discussion also throw light upon the importance of PPP model in determining the success of Smart Cities, Manish Agarwal, Executive Director, Infrastructure Advisory, PWC India said, “PPP model is imperative for Smart City development and it should not be viewed just as a financing option. PPP brings in certain level of service commitment and offers immense scope for innovation.”

 
The panelist also put the spotlight on the socio-economic necessities that drive the Smart City objective, turning the table on the inadequacies of our country’s infrastructure and administrative mechanisms, and the skills that will guide the city planners, administrators and proponents to build and manage Smart Cities.