Purpose: The Smart Cities due to their important role in infrastructure building activities and offering smart services to their residents in living an enjoyable life are always in the limelight and discussions. The current COVID-19 pandemic has however changed the situation, and has forced us to rethink the way we operate, carry out day to day activities and services. COVID-19 pandemic has changed the normal routine life to a significant extent, damaged the economies of many countries, shifted our business priorities, and so on. In such situations, how can Smart Cities remain unaffected due to COVID-19? This paper has analysed and discussed in detail the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Smart Cities operations and development and also, how this impact can be measured. It has described in detail how Smart Cities has changed their priorities and how they are more focusing on building Smart Healthcare facilities, Smart Isolation Wards, Smart Medicare facilities, services related to Telemedicine, Virtual Doctor, dedicated COVID-19 Command and Control Centres and so on. The paper has also highlighted the post COVID-19 Pandemic era for Smart Cities development and operations. Finally, the paper has concluded that Smart Cities development during and post COVID-19 Pandemic has witnessed a short obstacle in its growth journey, Smart Cities are definitely going to win the war against COVID-19 and will become Smarter in the future to tackle such pandemics. Design/Methodology/Approach: This research paper made use of available secondary data in research journal papers, online books, white papers, and dedicated websites on the research subject area to analyze the impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Smart Cities Development and Operations. Findings/Result: Due to COVID-19 Pandemic, it is observed that many sectors growth slow down due to budget cut and financial constraints, however, certain sectors such as Medical Infrastructure, Insurance, and eCommerce have seen booms, this has made Smart Cities to have a strong focus on certain Smart Services related to Medical facilities, IT infrastructure to facilitate contactless transactions, Telemedicine Service, Smart Isolation Wards, etc. whereas services with respect to entertainment parks, tourism, etc. slowed down due to less priority and budget constraints. Originality/Value: Based on the available secondary data, this research has identified the impact of COVID-19 on ongoing Smart Cities development and also how its priorities and focus got shifted to build up certain services and infrastructure. The paper has also highlighted post COVID-19, how Smart Cities development, operations, and maintenance activities will be affected. Paper Type: Secondary data-based Research

The growing population and mass relocation of citizens from urban and semi-urban areas to Smart Cities have resulted in exponential growth in Smart Cities and thereby certain challenges. One of the major challenges Smart Cities are facing is to control, manage and process waste generation on daily basis. Waste collection and processing at a wider scale is not an easy job. Growing population and resource constraints in waste management activities are the primary reasons which have made waste management a tough job. To deal with this challenging process, Smart Cities uses Smart Waste Management System. This paper has provided an overview of a typical Smart Waste Management system and a review of selected research papers on Smart Waste Management. We tried to identify areas of improvement with the existing Smart Waste Management Solutions and proposed an innovative solution called "iSmartWMS" for carrying out waste management specifically for Smart Cities. The paper has discussed in detail the architecture and building blocks of the proposed Smart Waste Management System, along with the details of software tools, sensors, and technologies proposed in iSmartWMS. The Paper has finally discussed results with respect to prototype implementation of iSmartWMS and also future plans to further improve the iSmartWMS smart waste management system.

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Improvement in economic conditions and increased standard of living has made it possible for most of the people to own multiple vehicles for personal commute. These increased number of vehicles specifically four-wheeler and heavy vehicles while running on roads causes frequent traffic jams and longer commute time specifically in crowded areas. Unfortunately, putting restrictions on use of vehicles, cannot be the solution for such problems. Instead, a solution pertaining to efficient traffic management can help here. Today’s urban cities are prone to face traffic related problems due to increased four-wheeler and two-wheeler uses. To deal with such kind of issues, Smart Cities uses smart traffic management system, which is considered as necessity rather just a requirement. In this paper, a Smart Traffic Management System: iSMART based on IOT Sensors, image processing, GPS and Data Analytics based solution is proposed. iSMART system is not only easy to install and use but also more efficient than many other typical traffic management systems claiming to be smart. It provides route optimization planner based on real time traffic data analysis and considering various traffic situations. The paper has also discussed details of various existing traffic managements systems and their typical features.

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