Moa Jamir
Kohima was ranked 10th out of 100 Smart Cities and certified as “Enabled”, in the Data Maturity Assessment Framework (DMAF) 2.0 released on June 2. Nagaland’s capital was the only city from the North East to make it to the top 10 in the 2nd edition of the DMAF, which assessed the maturity and readiness of cities in implementing the Data Smart Cities Strategy and capture their achievements.
According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), the cities are ranked so that the Urban Local Bodies “continue to invest in developing and strengthening their data ecosystems.” Five major pillars are used for the assessment – Policy, People, Process, Technology and Outcomes, with each pillar containing several components.
A detailed analysis of the points each city obtained in each category revealed that Kohima looked very good on paper but lagged behind others in ground implementations. If it was robust on both ends, the city would have emerged as the top performer.
Take the case of policy, which analysed the existence of “robust policy mechanisms in the city around data governance, empowerment, protection, collaboration and innovation.”
Majority of cities are yet to create a city-wide policy covering various aspects of data governance, the report said. However, Kohima was ranked 2nd among the 10 cities with a score of 97 out of 100.
Another good performance was in terms of Technology which assessed the quality and robustness of the city’s information and communications technology infrastructure. Kohima was ranked 3rd in this pillar.
In the case of ‘People,’ which among others, looked at presence of empowered city officials with the capacity to guide the city data policies, manage data governance and build city data alliances, it was ranked 8th.
However, the city’s ranking seems to have faltered a little the ‘Process’ pillar where it scored 45 out of possible 100. It analysed the “effectiveness of the city’s processes around data collection, usage, management, security, privacy, empowerment, collaboration, and innovation.”
The worst performing Pillar was the Outcomes where Kohima was ranked 34th with a score of 34. The pillar looked into quality of outcomes around data driven governance, ease of living, ease of doing business, collaboration and innovation in the city.
“Despite extensive collection of datasets in cities, majority of the cities have not been able to analyse and deduce desired outcomes for their cities,” the report commented.
Kohima was among one of them according to the component-wise scores under the pillar with recommendations for identifying more sector-specific problem statements being faced by a particular department and building solutions through efficient and effective use of city data.
While Kohima has initiated usage of data to solve critical urban problems, it needs to identify more areas where the data-driven problem-solving approach can be applied, it noted. The city was also advised to further develop portals and applications based on the various smart initiatives being undertaken in the city.
Most importantly, Kohima was advised to look into various city services targeted towards citizens, including ways to communicate with citizens with timely notifications which may be beneficial for them.
It further recommended appointment of a full-time CDO, either in Municipal Corporation or in Smart City SPV, to lead and operationalise data-related activities as well as data coordinators in all other departments and a data team.
As noted policy-wise, Kohima has a robust mechanism in place so far. The challenge now lies in implementing the policies effectively so that both citizens benefits out of these outcomes.
The recommendation on ‘Policy’ pillar is telling and must be followed both in letter and spirit: “Since your city has already approved a data policy, city may like to now focus on effective implementation of data initiatives by utilising the various processes mentioned in the Policy.”
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