Smart Cities And Academia Towards Action And Research (SAAR) Program.

Smart Cities Mission Launches Smart Cities And Academia Towards Action And Research (SAAR) Program.

Why in news:

• Smart Cities Mission has launched “Smart cities and Academia Towards Action & Research (SAAR)”
• It is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, National Institute of Urban Affairs and leading Indian academic institutions of the country.
• Current minister of housing and urban affairs- Hardeep Singh Puri.

About the Program:

• Under the program, 15 premier architecture & planning institutes of the country will be working with Smart Cities to document landmark projects undertaken by the Smart Cities Mission.
• The documents will capture learnings from best practices.
• It will provide opportunities to students for engagement on urban development projects and enable real-time information flow between urban practitioners and academia.
• The first activity envisaged under SAAR is to prepare a compendium of 75 landmark urban projects in India under the Smart Cities Mission.
• These 75 urban projects are innovative, multi-sectoral, and have been implemented across geographies.
• The program marks the 75th anniversary of India’s independence.
• Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs has said that the compendium of 75 urban projects would be launched by June this year.

SAAR Process Flow

• MoHUA and NIUA will facilitate linkages between the institutions and smart cities for specific landmark projects that are to be documented under the program.
• The institutes will document the outcomes of these projects on how they are impacting the lives of urban citizens.
• Team of students, mentors from these premier institutions will be visiting these 47 smart cities to understand/document these projects in the month of January/February 2022.
• The workflow of the compendium being prepared by SAAR will include field investigation, data analysis & documentation, national research methodology workshop for the participating students, peer review of the first draft, final submission by research students to their respective institutions, institutional submission of research to NIUA and leading to the launch of compendium of 75 urban projects by June 2022.

About smart cities mission:

• National Smart Cities Missionis an urban renewal and retrofitting program by the Government of India with the mission to develop smart cities across the country, making them citizen friendly and sustainable.
• The Union Ministry of Urban Development is responsible for implementing the mission in collaboration with the state governments of the respective cities.
• The mission initially included 100 cities, with the deadline for completion of the projects set between 2019 and 2023.
• The effective combined completion of all projects as of 2019 is at 11%.