Siemens offers integrated solutions for smart city development

German technology giant Siemens has offered to provide integrated solutions to potential smart cities, especially in the areas of urban infrastructure, energy, security, waste management and governance platforms - ranging from planning to execution.

A five-member delegation led by Joe Kaeser, president and CEO of Siemens and Dipak Parekh of HDFC Bank met minister of urban development and housing and urban poverty alleviation Venkaiah Naidu and discussed possible areas of involvement in the Smart City Mission.

The Siemens chief referred to the growing presence in India of Siemens over the last 45 years and evinced keen interest to further deepen partnership in India's growth story in the context of new initiatives in urban sector.

The delegation also referred to a memorandum of understanding signed with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for partnering in Smart City Mission based on a consortium approach. Kaeser said his company has the ideas, technologies and identified financing partners in Deutsche Bank and KFW to assist the potential smart cities.

Naidu suggested that Siemen's representatives and senior officials of the ministry should hold further discussions on evolving a template for city-wise integrated solutions for the consideration of urban local bodies.

New urbans sector initiatives like the Smart City Mission and Housing for All Mission also came in for extensive discussion between the minister of urban development and housing and urban poverty alleviation and high level delegations from the UNO and UNDP.

A delegation from the UN and UNDP led by Yuri Afansiev, resident coordinator of UN and resident representative of UNDP also met Naidu and explored the areas of possible cooperation in the implementation of new urban sector initiatives.

Afansiev suggested the use of pre-fabricated housing technologies on a large scale to meet the ambitious housing targets of the government.

Naidu referred to the efforts being made by the his ministry to promote pre-fabricated housing technologies and suggested that a few pilot projects could be taken up after further discussions for promoting such construction under the housing mission.