Smart Cities Mission in the Face of COVID: Scope and Scale of ‘Smart’ COVID Responses in India

Abstract

COVID has expedited and expanded the already precarious smart city development in India with the multitude of ‘smart’ COVID responses—broadly known as CovTech—introduced since the early days of the global pandemic. This paper offers an analysis of the scope and scale of smart responses to COVID in the first 20 cities prioritized for smart city implementation—as part of the Smart Cities Mission in India. The analysis unravels the diversity within the smart COVID response, as 125 COVID applications, 14 COVID-War-Rooms, and numerous examples of smart public place initiatives are discussed. The findings include a typology of COVID applications and shed light on the operations of COVID-War-Rooms throughout the nation. The learnings point toward a mostly top-down approach to smart COVID response. Yet, early evidence indicates the existence of an alternative subaltern smart COVID response to provide bottom-up support to the most vulnerable groups, filling the gaps in the top-down approach. More research is required to thoroughly understand the scope and scale of the subaltern smart response to COVID.