Govt launches National Urban Digital Mission for creating digital infra

The Central government Tuesday launched National Urban Digital Mission' to create a digital infrastructure for cities in the country, a statement stated.

The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry (MoHUA) said the move will institutionalise a citizen-centric and ecosystem-driven approach to urban governance and service delivery in cities by 2022, and across all cities and towns by 2024.

Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Minister of Electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad launched the National Urban Digital Mission' (NUDM) at a virtual event.

Other initiatives -- India Urban Data Exchange (IUDX), SmartCode, Smart Cities 2.0 website, and Geospatial Management Information System (GMIS) -- were also launched at the event.

The NUDM will create a shared digital infrastructure that can consolidate and cross-leverage the various digital initiatives of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, enabling cities and towns across India to benefit from holistic and diverse forms of support, in keeping with their needs and local challenges, the MoHUA said in statement.

It also stated that other initiative 'India Urban Data Exchange (IUDX)' has been developed in partnership between the Smart Cities Mission and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.

IUDX serves as a seamless interface for data providers and data users, including ULBs, to share, request, and access datasets related to cities, urban governance, and urban service delivery," it stated.

IUDX is an open-source software platform which facilitates secure, authenticated, and managed exchange of data amongst various data platforms, third party authenticated and authorised applications, and other sources, it also stated.

On 'SmartCode', the MoHUA said that it is a platform that enables all ecosystem stakeholders to contribute to a repository of open-source code for various solutions and applications for urban governance.

It is designed to address the challenges that ULBs face in the development and deployment of digital applications to address urban challenges, by enabling cities to take advantage of existing codes and customising them to suit local needs, rather than having to develop new solutions from scratch," it added.