Life has indeed become ‘smarter’ with smartphones entering everyday life of citizens. Today netizens live in a data-driven world powered by the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Real-time apps and sensors have brought information at fingertips while ensuring smooth and convenient living for a large part of the population. As Gartner predicts, 70 per cent of the world population will be staying in cities by 2050, which is evidently going to put pressure on its resources, infrastructure building, security management, energy requirement and all related functions. To ascertain that the city-life runs smoothly, the power of technology is something to look forward to.
At the intersection of technology and citizen services, concept of smart cities has emerged, where data-driven technology, surveillance and information sharing are used to monitor, maintain and improve infrastructure and services. In smart cities, from traffic to security surveillance, from water distribution to electricity theft, from pollution control to waste management are aimed to be powered by IoT, leveraging devices, sensors and real-time apps. It would also accumulate data of everyday happenings and analyse them to arrive at day-to-day solutions for the urban problems, improvement opportunities, better execution of services, monitor, manage and upgrade infrastructure, maintain standard and quality of public life.
As estimated by a NASSCOM report, by 2020, India will be having 2.7 billion connected devices. This would include a rise in number of IoT enabled systems. So far, security is definitely one area, where urban India has considerably adopted IoT in recent times. With crime rates rising in every sphere, citizens are increasingly finding it comfortable to have their home, academic institutions, offices, shops under CCTV surveillance and stay connected for information. Similarly, administration also monitors roads, public places and festivals to pull down the crime rates and keep the city secured. Indian video surveillance market has shown a growth rate of 27 per cent in the last few years and reached Rs 5,467 crore in 2017-18, as estimated by Dataquest. It is further projected to grow at over 10.5 per cent CAGR by 2024. Determining flood or drought situations are also being aimed at. With IoT, solar energy-driven smart street poles can be used in sourcing information on flood situation, thereby, helping in relief work.
But beyond this, there are various other areas where IoT can work wonders. Let us take the case of water distribution. With groundwater in India reaching alarmingly lower levels every single day, 54 per cent of India’s total area is facing crisis. NITI Aayog’s 2018 Composite water management report predicts a scary situation of public water supply, sufficient only to meet half the projected demand by 2030, leading to severe water crisis as well as an estimated loss of 6 per cent GDP. Here, IoT can be of immense help as they can track leakages and wastage through real-time trackers and sensors, analyse the data and provide information to respective authorities to provide solutions on time. Also monitoring of the infrastructure for maintenance and wastage of water can be done and the data can be passed on to related administrative departments for immediate and necessary action. The proposed IoT enabled water management systems can capture and share daily water usage patterns, the state of water level and water overflow or leakage control. Thus, optimal and intelligent water distributions can be achieved if these systems are adopted.
Same holds for electricity management too! Cities in India mostly suffer from irregular distribution of electricity, a major cause of which is electricity theft through illegal tapping, meter bypassing etc. According to a survey in 2015 by Outlook, India accounts for the highest electricity theft, amounting to a loss of about Rs 13,250 crore in the total loss of Rs 56,492 crore globally. The present measuring system doesn’t provide real-time data and hence, it is difficult to track theft of electricity. A proposed IoT-enabled system, smart energy meters and sensors are put to use to measure the real-time power transfer and power consumption data, the difference of which therefore is the amount of theft. The smart energy meter device calculates the everyday consumption of electricity in homes, businesses and institutions and reports the usage data to the related administrative department through IoT. In another system, an infrared (IR) sensor can be used to sense power tripping due to electricity theft and the connected surveillance camera can help identify people illegally approaching near electricity poles. Thus, an abnormal consumption can easily be tracked, and theft can be prevented too.
As the trend goes, year after year, people keep migrating to the cities and thereby, making urban life crowded. Population being a core issue for India since long, the challenge for administration and civic authorities has always been efficient management of the city and its infrastructure as well as distribution of public goods and facilities. With constantly expanding internet access and digital boom surrounding urban life, the challenges are slowly being put to ease and smart cities are, thus, being created one after another. IoT, Big Data and AI can be put to use to play an enormous role in all these situations, by constant monitoring through connected devices and sensors and analysing the data for smooth management of the city.
However, we need to leverage the power of IoT for ourselves better. We need to move beyond mere dashboarding function to realise the value of being connected and the power of predictive information that comes with it.
So far it’s mostly on paper, barring few segments of daily life, where IoT is being considerably applied. Desired results can only be achieved when the proposed systems can actually be put to work. This is what urban India looks forward to now, earnestly.
