India’s smart cities mission awarded at the Digital India Awards 2022

About Digital India Awards 2022:

• The Smart Cities Mission won the award under the ‘Data Sharing and Use for Socio-Economic Development’ category.
  • This category ‘emphasizes on sharing of Government Data by Ministries/Departments/Organizations, States, Cities and ULBs to create a vibrant data for analysis, decision-making, innovation etc.
• The initiative is a key step in creating a robust data ecosystem that enables evidence-based decision-making in cities.
• The Digital India Awards (DIA) is a prestigious National competition that seeks to encourage and honour innovative digital solutions by government entities in realising the Digital India vision.
• These are conducted by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) under the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY).

What is the Data smart Cities Initiative?

• Aim: To harness the power of data for better governance in India’s 100 Smart Cities.
• It is based on a ‘People, Platform, Process’ strategy, which is helping in the convergence of the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs’ efforts for performance management, empowerment of communities, and research, co-creation & open innovation.
• The program has institutionalized a Data Ecosystem in cities through 100 City Data Offices and more than 50 Data Policies.

Q1) What is Digital India and its key vision areas?

Digital India is a flagship programme of the Government of India with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. Digital Infrastructure Creation, Digital Delivery of Services, and Digital Literacy are the three main components of the Digital India initiative. 

Source: PIB