Siemens offers integrated solutions for Smart City development

The Indian government on Tuesday said that German conglomerate Siemens has offered to implement integrated solutions for the Smart City development projects in the country.

A five member delegation led by Siemens president and CEO Joe Kaeser, and Dipak Parekh of HDFC Bank met union Urban Development Minister M. Venkiah Naidu to discuss possible areas of involvement in the Smart Cities initiative.

Kaeser indicated the growing presence of Siemens in India over the last 45 years and voiced keen interest to further deepen partnership in the country's growth story in the context of new initiatives in the urban sector.

The delegation said that given the experience and expertise of Siemens, the company is in a position to offer integrated solutions to potential Smart Cities covering the areas of urban infrastructure, energy, security, waste management and governance platforms and ranging from planning to execution.

It also referred to an MOU signed with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for partnering in Smart City Mission based on a consortium approach. "Siemens has the ideas, technologies and identified financing partners in Deutsche Bank and KFW to assist the potential Smart Cities," Kaeser said.

In response to discussions in the meeting, Naidu said that Siemen representatives and his ministry's senior officials should hold further discussions on evolving a template for city-wise integrated solutions for consideration of urban local bodies.

A delegation from the United Nations and United Nations Development Programme led by resident UN coordinator Yuri Afansiev also met the minister and explored areas of possible cooperation in the implementation of new urban sector initiatives.

Afansiev told Naidu that use of pre-fabricated housing technologies should be adopted on a large scale to meet the ambitious housing targets of the government.

The minister referred to the efforts being made by 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.