Hitachi India Limited and Siemens Limited signed a MoU with CII in the capital today to form a consortium that would create pilots and replicate them throughout the country for setting up 100 smart cities. The MoU was signed on behalf of Hitachi by their MD, Mr. Ichiro Iino and MD, Siemens Ltd, Mr. Sunil Mathur and DG, CII Mr. Chandrajit Banerjee in the presence of DIPP Secretary Mr. Amitabh Kant.

 Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Amitabh Kant said that while cities occupy only 3 % of the total geographical area of the world, they contribute nearly 80% of GDP and 2/3^rd of global emissions. Hence, there was a challenge to do urbanisation in an innovative and systematic manner. Mr. Kant said that learnings gathered from the best practices across the world in the management of water, public resources, public spaces and technology etc shall be shared while implementing the smart cities concept in India. He said that smart city initiative shall be driven by technology driven companies.

 Earlier, in his address, DG,CII said that this MoU provides a platform for coming together of leading technology companies such as Hitachi and Siemens and this will enable the implementation of vision of hundred smart cities.

MoU for smart city consortium drives technology-led pilots and replication to implement a nationwide smart city program. A MoU between Hitachi India Limited, Siemens Limited and CII establishes a technology-led consortium to design, pilot and replicate smart city projects nationwide, focusing on urban management areas such as water, public resources and public spaces, and relying on global best practices and private-sector technical capacity for implementation.