Japanese IT firm in fray for 'future cities' project

NEW DELHI, INDIA: As India is heading towards rapid urbanization, Japanese IT heavyweight NEC Corporation feels that implementation of 'smart cities' has become imperative. With government's thrust to facilitate national capital- a future city by 2020-- the deployment of advanced systems and management solutions are yet to gain momentum.

In an interaction with CIOL, Rajiv Bhalla, AVP and country head (sales and marketing) at NEC India, opined that public safety and identity solutions business in India have tremendous potential. "Our cities are gold mines of heritage, architecture, culture and human wealth. Smart and safe city initiative by the government is a step in right direction," he said.

New Delhi aspires to be first among other large India urban suburbs to be upgraded to the latest technological solutions extended to its citizens. Bhalla believes that key elements for implementation of a safe city includes GPS and GIS systems, vehicle scanners, night-vision devices, vehicle number plate identification system and
modern riot protection gear.

NEC introduced this concept in India in December 2011, which it says empowers governments to adopt technologies for cyber security and green environment. The company declined to elaborate on the project progress citing, "it's too early to comment."

Estimations say that 30 people would leave rural India for urban areas every minute during the next 20 years. At this rate, Bhalla believes that the country will need some 500 new cities in the next two decades. "Cities and urban developments will need to use innovative
technologies and solutions to manage the growing demands on the city infrastructure that delivers vital services," he said.

The safe city project will integrate new technologies with the existing security apparatus to improve the response time and support a flexible and coherent city operation, Bhalla said. The company develops integrated security solutions and technologies, including
multi-biometric identification, access gate, video surveillance and behavior pattern analysis for governments' safe city initiatives.