Microsoft helps to turn Surat into a smart city

SURAT, INDIA: Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) is evaluating technology infrastructure to meet the changing needs of its citizens, and has selected Microsoft as its partner of choice for process automation and citizen services.

Milind Torawane, Surat Municipal Commissioner, said, “Our existing adoption of technology is benefitting Surat in several ways. With various service delivery channels like City Civic Center, Virtual Civic Center (Online services through website) and Mobile App, citizens are able to access the services easily and quickly. The adoption of IT has also helped in improving the internal efficiencies."

"Over the course of the next few months, we will work with Microsoft and its partners, Iconics and SoftTech, on solutions for water management and urban planning (building plan approvals). These along with other similar solutions will help us keep the citizen at the center of our development and fulfil our smart city vision,” added he.

Neeraj Gill, General Manager – Public Sector, Microsoft India said, “Microsoft CityNext puts the citizens at the very center, to help develop a sustainable and future-ready city. This can serve as a model for other Indian cities, in line with the Indian Government’s vision of 100 smart cities.”

The specific engagements between the Surat Municipal Corporation and Microsoft span the following:

• Surat has already implemented several e-Governance and citizen-centric solutions developed on Microsoft technologies, including,
  
  -Government Administration systems including finance & accounts, property tax & revenue collections and material management
  
  -Citizen services across RTI, Property tax payments, birth & death registration, grievance redressal system, vaccination alert system, application tracking systems, Disease Statistics/Reports for Hospitals and solid waste management system
  
  -Utility services including Water supply and sewage systems
  
  -To make citizen safety, a customized platform has been created for Surat City’s Police Department in collaboration with Surat Traffic Education Trust. The enhanced safety system assists the city police to effectively monitor and respond to security and crime threats in a timely manner
  
  -Over and above these solutions, earlier this year, Microsoft embarked upon a mapping exercise for existing infrastructure, envisioning how the city can build upon its current resources and develop long-term plans to better serve Surat citizens now and in the future
• Microsoft has created a City Dashboard that provides a customized view of key performance indicators for the city. The Dashboard displays important indices at a city level and for specific city domains such as complaints, health, and project works, among others
• On 18th and 19th December, an ‘Appathon’ to develop applications that can lead to improved engagement with the city’s administration was held in Surat. Over 100 technical students, software developers & IT community participated in the Appathon and developed apps on the Windows platform