The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has formed a national mission on smart cities. It involves membership of all leading companies associated with infrastructure and IT as well as the developer community.

All the key stakeholders are part of this committee, said S Raghupathy, executive director, CII Green Business Centre. Talking to Governance Now on the sidelines of a conference on Tamil Nadu Smart Cities in Chennai on Thursday, he said the idea is to work in partnership with the government to make the smart city concept a reality. The first phase of the ambitious initiative from the Modi government is defining a smart city, and its key features.

“Initial thoughts have gone into it and we are discussing these aspects with the government,” he said. The second point is whatever that has been conceived as a smart city must be executed. So the committee and the national mission on smart cities are working on how to make smart city a reality and possibilities are being explored on how such project can be executed.

Further, smart cities have got several components and it not possible for a particular organisation to do everything. So, smart city execution requires a consortium approach. It’s a consortium of several companies involved to make the total package work. And the consortium is led by one organisation, which takes the overall performance into criteria. There is a need for integration, which is very critical for smart city to become a reality, he suggested.

Referring to Tamil Nadu, Raghupathy said the state should grab the opportunity and build as many smart cities as possible. "Opportunities are tremendous in this state."