Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCCs)

Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCCs)

News: The government has announced that 80 of the 100 planned Integrated Command and Control Centres have been set up, with the rest to be completed by August 15.

About:
• The Smart Cities Mission includes setting up ICCCs for each such city as a vital step.
• These ICCCs are designed to enable authorities to monitor the status of various amenities in real time.
• Initially aimed at controlling and monitoring water and power supply, sanitation, traffic movement, integrated building management, city connectivity and Internet infrastructure, these centres have since evolved to monitor various other parameters.
• The ICCCs are now also linked to the CCTNS (Crime and Criminal Tracking Networks and Systems) network under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Role of ICCC’s during Pandemic:
• They served as war-rooms for Covid-19 management. The government used them to manage the outbreak, with real-time surveillance and monitoring of districts across the country.
• The war-rooms were used to track people under quarantine, suspected Covid-19 cases and track status of positive Covid-19 cases.

Smart-cities mission:
• The Smart Cities Mission aims at developing 100 cities, which were shortlisted, into self-sustainable urban settlements. The mission was launched on June 25, 2015 and was projected as one aimed at transforming the process of urban development in the country.
• It focuses on ‘area-based development’, which includes city improvement (retrofitting), city renewal (redevelopment) and city extension (greenfield development), plus a pan-city initiative in which ‘smart solutions’ are applied covering larger parts of the city.
• Key focus areas of the scheme include the construction of walkways, pedestrian crossings, cycling tracks, efficient waste-management systems, integrated traffic management and assessment.
• The scheme also assesses various indices to track urban development such as the Ease of Living Index,Municipal Performance Index, City GDP framework, Climate-Smart Cities assessment framework.

Way Forward for ICCC’s:
• The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has begun work to finalise its recommendation for providing ICCCs as a service to states and smaller cities.
• The Ministry aims to finalise an ICCC model and implement a pilot project across six major states — Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.