Government of India should stay focused on doing the easy and basic things first, said Banmali Agrawala, president and CEO, South Asia, GE, at Amcham 23rd AGM at New Delhi.
“Better to focus on smart solutions for cities rather than smart city solutions. We need a unified decision making structure in place for this,” said Agrawala.
Smart cities are integral to the growth of India’s future growth, said U.S Ambassador to India Richard Verma at the event. The country’s digital growth will help spur collaboration between both the countries.
India and the U.S have already joined hands to establish an Infrastructure Collaboration Platform. As a follow-up of this, the U.S government is committed to ensure U.S companies’ participation in a strategic and structured way, said John McCaslin, Minister Counsellor for Commercial Affairs, US Embassy.
India will require infrastructure improvements of an estimated $ 1.5 – 2 trillion over the next 10-15 years as its population is likely to hit 1.8 billion by 2050. This will spur the need for smart infrastructures like smart cities.
Amitabh Kant, secretary, Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Ministry of Commerce said that the government is committed to creating a predictable, transparent and enabling policy regime to ensure ease of doing business in the country.
Kant urged that India should work with some of the finest American companies to use their technologies and solutions.
“American companies are adept at applying solutions around the globe and scaling them to fit context and scope, meaning the possibilities are nearly endless for US and Indian companies willing to innovate and create,” Kant added.
According to Venkatesh Kini, Coca-Cola India president, India and South West Asia, smart infrastructure should fuse both physical and digital infrastructure. It should also be able to provide a sustainable living to people and help enhance the quality of life.
Varun Khanna, MD, Becton Dickinson India, stressed on the importance of enabling technologies to provide smart healthcare solutions such as digital health records and remote monitoring of labs.
Kaku Nakhate, president and country head (India), Bank of America, said that financing is a key infrastructure link and can change the presentation once everyone chips in orwants anything more covered on financing.
Rajani Baburajan