ISCN Online Advisory Programme #10: A look at national urban data platforms in India

The special focus was on India with its ambitious Smart Cities Mission and the related ecosystem of five national urban data platforms: Smart Cities Open Data Portal (SCODP), Indian Urban Observatory (IUO), Indian Urban Data Exchange (IUDX), Assessment and Monitoring Platform for Liveable, Inclusive and Future-ready Urban India (AMPLIFI), and SmartCode.

To get a better understanding of the Indian approach and share insights and learnings on it with its partners around the world, the ISCN has commissioned the study “Insights from deployment of National Urban Data Platforms in India – National Government Support to Cities for Undertaking Data-driven Development” – which was officially and live published on the occasion of the OAP!

Abdelrahman Helal and Lucy Bretelle from Buro Happold, the authors of the study, offered a short summarising keynote, which you can rewatch below: 

Subsequently, a high-level panel discussion took place between Kunal Kumar, Joint Secretary and Mission Director of the Smart Cities Mission at the Indian Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), and Renate Mitterhuber, head of the division “Smart Cities” at the German Federal Ministry of Housing, Urban Development and Building. They exchanged views and lessons from both countries on how to provide the foundation for urban data usage in the development of Smart Cities at the national level.

Mr Kumar emphasised, among others, that a strong private sector will depend on a strong public sector in the area of Smart City Development and that standardisations and core open source modules are an expression of that. He also urged for government to tap further into what he called the “cognitive surpluses” in our contemporary societies by further opening up to a broader set of players. Ms Mitterhuber highlighted the similarities in thinking in modular and interoperable ways about the data platform ecosystems in both countries. Moreover, she raised the important question for the public side of how to balance data monetisation with open data culture, in the European context something embedded in complex multi-layer governance. Both agreed that a sensible alignment between centralisation and decentralisation efforts continues to be the way forward.

Overall, the OAP provided the following key learnings on the Indian case which applies also to the German and other contexts:

1. Platforms encourage cross-sectoral and cross-cities as well as civil stakeholder collaboration
   
   The five national platforms offer tools for intermunicipal knowledge transfer. Furthermore, partnerships and cross-learning have emerged with international organizations.  
    
2. Challenges connected to data platforms have to be reflected in two dimensions: user capacity and data questions
   
   Challenges include disparities regarding the level of digitization and digital literacy all over India. Also, uncertainty about the specific purpose of each of the five new platforms, concerns about data gaps and data accessibility arise.
    
3. Further research has to balance monetization and open data culture
   
   Future research should focus on economic potential of data platforms and possible incentive mechanisms to increase participation in Urban Data Platforms, both internally within the public sector as well as externally within the private sector, while keeping in mind the importance of accessible data.