IBM to help transform President’s Estate into smart township

International Business Machines (IBM) has secured a contract for the digital transformation of the President's Estate into a smart city deploying its smart city solutions, which would help enhance the efficiency of critical infrastructure and utilities present there.

The partnership to re-imagine the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the Estate in the digital age was signed today in the presence of President Pranab Mukherjee. Union minister of urban development Venkaiah Naidu and minister of telecommunications and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad were also present during the occasion.

President Pranab Mukherjee also inaugurated the Intelligent Operations Centre (IOC) in Rashtrapati Bhavan and launched a mobile app 'monitor' for transformation of President's Estate into a smart township at a function held at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Thursday.

Speaking on the occasion, the President said, ''The journey to improve the living standards of the Estate community is a never-ending process. There is always a possibility to add a coat of paint to make a wall a shade brighter.

''If I were to use a word to describe a human emotion associated with this ongoing transformation of quality of life in the township, it will be happiness. It is happiness that holds the key to the well-being of people and for the development of human society. Today, recognising the smiles on the faces of my people, I will like to add one more 'H' to our model of 3H, and that is 'Happiness'. From now, our Smart President's Estate will work around the '4H' theme of a Humane, Hi-tech, Heritage and Happy Township,'' the President said.

Spread across 330 acres of land and home to over 5,000 residents, the self-sustained President's Estate is adopting IBM's technology and solutions to become future-ready.

''This township is a micro-cosmic India where residents belong to different regions, pursue different faiths, and observe diverse customs, habits and traditions. The campus has a mandir, a masjid, a gurudwara inside; and a church across the road. The township has schools, holistic healthcare centres, dispensaries, libraries, markets, museums, banks and post offices,'' the President pointed out.

''The Dr Rajendra Prasad Sarvodaya Vidyalaya that is located inside the township has on its rolls more than 1,500 students from the President's Estate as well as other parts of Delhi,'' he added.

The Intelligent Operations Centre (IOC) addresses challenges that are inherent to townships- water supply, security, electrical infrastructure and solid waste management.

IBM's IOC helps collect and make sense of the rich data streaming in from several sources within the Estate to provide actionable insights. ''It offers integrated data visualisation, near real-time collaboration and deep analytics to help enhance the ongoing efficiency that will improve the efficiency of services for its residents.''

IBM will provide smart energy management, smart water management, smart waste and horticulture management and smart security systems for the progressive digital transformation of the Presidential Estate.

Towards this, IBM said it has created the business architecture and operating procedures, implemented the technology platform and solutions, and is managing the entire technology deployment.

The President said the Smart President's Estate will be a replicable model, which can be adopted in other parts of the country through citizens' engagement, public and private sector participation and deployment of intensive technologies.

He added that measurable performance parameters to judge the performance of the different departments under the secretariat would help in creating an incentivisation process. He said that this approach in urban governance where President's secretariat recognises stakeholders for their contribution to public causes is noteworthy.

According to the President, scarcity of natural resources as well as trained and skilled manpower pose challenge in governance since exploitation and greed could lead to disasters and catastrophe. In this context, technology is a powerful enabler to optimise the utilisation and management of resources, he suggested.