NEW DELHI: With the government embarking on an ambitious urbanisation programme, the Indian School of Business (ISB) has developed a framework to help cities assess and develop the prowess to become smart cities.

The 'Smart City Maturity Model' (SCMM) has been prepared to help Indian cities as well as states assess their progress and align their strategies in this regard, according to an ISB research paper.

To address the rising challenge of urbanisation, especially with increasing migration expected from the rural parts, the government is looking to develop at least 100 smart cities in coming years.

More than 600 million people would be living in urban areas by 2031, as per estimates.

Smart city is defined as one that leverages technology to integrate and optimise its resources towards better habitability, sustainability and citizen empowerment.

According to ISB, the framework would help a city or state to assess its technology readiness and subsequently align the resources and capabilities.

SCMM, which focuses on assessment and solution aspects, would help "a city or state assess the condition of its social, physical and technological development to identify its readiness for implementation of smart city solutions".

On the basis of social and physical infrastructure, the states in the country can be categorised into four clusters -- development laggards, low moderate development, high moderate development and development leaders, the paper said.

The model has been developed by Deepa Mani, Assistant Professor and Joint Executive Director, along with Shankadeep Banerjee, Research Associate at the school's Srini Raju Centre for IT and the Networked Economy.

ISB is a leading business school with campuses in Hyderabad and Mohali.
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