Information and Communications Technology spend on Smart Cities could be 10-15% of Budget: Nasscom

NEW DELHI: The total information and communications technology (ICT) spending for Smart Cities could account for 10-15% of the overall budget, which translates to a $30-40-billion opportunity over the next 10 years, said National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom).

The apex industry body has been working with the Ministry of Urban Development and its member companies to build a framework to highlight the role of ICT in developing Smart Cities, one of government's most ambitious projects.

"It is imperative that the ICT application/framework is integrated across the key infrastructure and environmental pillars (of Smart Cities), especially when procured as a component of individual infrastructure pillars," said R Chandrashekhar, president, Nasscom.

Nasscom has partnered with IT outsourcing and consulting company Accenture for developing the ICT architecture framework, the Association for Geospatial Industries for developing the geographical information system (GIS) and high-tech company Orkash for developing safe city architecture framework.

Nasscom will be launching a report titled ‘Integrated ICT and Geospatial Technologies Framework for 100 Smart Cities Mission' at the Smart City Expo in Delhi next week. While the government has set aside about $350 million for smart cities in 2015-16, the cost to build even a single smart city would be much higher than this amount. Nasscom suggested the financing mechanism include options such as debt market, equity investments, tax, support from research giants and public private partnerships.