MATRIX MODEL TO ANALYSE FEASIBILITY OF SMART CITY IN GUWAHATI

Abstract: Smart City Mission was launched by the Government of India on 25th June 2015
with the aim to transform the selected 100 cities of the country into smart cities. Till date 100
cities have been selected to upgrade into smart city and they will receive funding from central
and state government as well through the Public Private Partnership. The Guwahati city
which is strategically located as the gateway to northeast India was selected in 17th position
in first stage of selection for smart city. The major problems the Guwahati city facing today
are traffic congestion, flash flood and inadequate number of Public Sanitation. The objective
of the study is to analyse the feasibility of the smart city and to answer if the mission can
solve the current mentioned problems in City. The methodology adopted for the study is
Matrix model analysis. The parameters used for the model are availability of water facility,
sanitation, street light, hospital, educational institution, flood problem, landslide problem, road
connectivity and transportation, traffic congestion and electricity. The data has been collected
from secondary source and by observation and questionnaire method. The technique of GIS
was used to prepare the outcome map. The primary finding of the study is that northern ward
of the city which lies near of the Brahmaputra River, except the Nilachal hills is highly
feasible for the smart city and Dispur which is in the central part is also highly feasible for the
smart city. The average of the Summation of Assessment point of the all the wards in the city
is 73.09 and it indicate that city is feasible for foundation of smart city.

Key words: Smart City, Matrix Model, Feasible and Flood, Assessment Point
Introduction
In the 21st century the development in the urban has led to the change of paradigm (Eremia
et al., 2017). The concept of Smart City means different things to different people as there is
no one fit universal definition of the Smart City. Its concept differs from city to city, regions to
regions, nation to nation and country to country. The institute in California was first to focus
on the use of ICT to make the communities and people smart in smart city (Alawadhi et al.,
2012). Smart City introduces the Information Communication technology (ICT) to boost the
living standard of the citizens, its growth and development. It improves the performance
activities of the city by making optimum uses of the available resources and by dropping rate
of consumption and its expenses. At their disposal Smart citizens have several ICT
infrastructures, which permit them to enhance their day to day accomplishments (Lendak,
2016). The cities in India are focusing on the construction of the sustainable infrastructure to
meet the growing demand of the growing population (Sen et al., 2016). The most important
and central part of the successful implementation of the smart city is Infrastructure (Monzon,
2015).
The application of ICT encourages the actively engagements of the citizen with the
government schemes, services and activities. Waste disposal problem is the main concern of
hygiene in India, directly 22 diseases are caused due to improper management of urban
waste (Anand, 2010). The ICT should be applied in the city to manage the waste, enhance
the sector of transportation, water supply, energy and power supply, retail, disaster
management and various other sectors. In international policies and scientific literature, the
concept of the smart city has been becoming very popular since last couple of decades
(Albino et al., 2015). Smart city mission is the great step towards building the world class
sustainable cities (Basumatary and Anand, 2016). The main aims and objectives of the Mission
are to derive the growth in economic sector and to bring growth and development in citizen’s
life by enhancing ICT infrastructure. Based on the terms, context and nature of utilization
Infrastructure has numerous meanings (Hadir and Rodzi, 2009). There is expectation that the
sustainable environment and decent quality of life will be attained with the introduction of the
Smart city mission in India. The Mission wants to create a replicable model which will act a
light house to other aspiring cities (Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, 2017). The smart
city concept is very recent phenomena in India, it was launched by the present government
on 25th June 2015 (Roy, 2016). The opportunities of the mission should be availed by every
section of the society. In India there are 13.8 million household of the slum dwellers, they
should be not left out (Chandrasekhar and Venkatesh, 2014).
The Guwahati city is facing difficulty to match with the pace of escalating growing
demands of the city services and its facilities. It suffers from flash flood, traffic congestion,
shortfall in infrastructure, overcrowding, mushrooming of slum, lack of drinking water and
sanitation. Apart from these frequent problems, some of the other major problems, the city
facing are environment problems, disasters, social problem, health and crimes. Therefore, for
the proper planning and management, the application of ICT to assist the city planners has
become important. Introduction of the smart city mission is the step in this direction.
Study Area
The study is confined to the area of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation of the Guwahati City
which covers the total area of 176 sq. km. Due to its strategic location it is the commercial
hub and gateway to North-east India (Mahadevia et al., 2014). Guwahati the major city of
Assam is located at 26°10″ north latitudes and 92°49″ east longitudes. The city is horse shoe
in shape and is situated in between the south banks of the Brahmaputra and Meghalaya
Plateau in north (Deka, 2000). The land-use pattern of the city witnesses the multi-functional
in character (Borah and Bhagabati, 2015).
Traffic jamming and flash flood are the two major problems in the city. With the reduction
in the price of vehicles, due to Globalisation, people are purchasing them at high intensity,
but the size of the roads are same as usual, so it has caused the traffic congestion. Majority
of the city bus and transport facilities in Guwahati is privately owned and the main motive is
to maximise the profit ignoring the public welfare that’s why people prefer to travel in their
own vehicles which cause influx of vehicle in the road and result into great traffic problem.
Each monsoon, with slight rainfall, roads get floods with water, this cause great damage to
properties and lives. The problem of traffic congestion needs to be tackled with the
application of ICT in traffic department and encouraging the people to travel through public
transportation to avoid traffic jam. For this government must give more emphasis on the
development of public service and upgrading smart infrastructure. Before 1971 there was no
such recorded flood problem in the city, so it clearly indicates that the flash problem in the
city is due to unplanned development (Gogoi, 2013). This problem can be solved by adopting
various smart method and techniques. The matrix model is applied to sort out the
region/ward which is suitable for feasibility of the smart city mission.
Database and Methodology
The main objectives of the study are to analyse the feasibility of the smart city in Guwahati
using Matrix Model and to answer if the mission can solve the current mentioned problems of
the city. Matrix Analysis Model is used to determine the feasibility of the smart city in each
respective wards of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation area. The analysis is based on the
primary field survey of the current situation of the City. The points assigned, range from 0 to
4, 4 being the highest positive remarks and 0 the lowest. This model is adopted to study the
feasibility of the smart city in Guwahati. The point assigned for Approval/ Condition/ Situation
of the parameters are 4 for highly satisfied, 3 for satisfied, 2 for neutral, 1 for dissatisfied and
0 for strongly dissatisfied (Table 1).

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By:

Mijing Gwra Basumatary1
Subhash Anand2
1Research Scholar,
2Associate Professor
Department of Geography, Delhi School of Economic, University of Delhi, Delhi, India
Email: sidmijing@gmail.com, sanandpv@yahoo.co.in