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Our Correspondent
Kohima, June 26 (EMN): Kohima Smart City has made it to the top 10 cities in India in Data Maturity Assessment Framework announced by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs during the launch anniversary of Smart City Mission on Friday.
Out of the 100 smart cities, Kohima, Raipur and Thane shared the tenth position in the competition.
Surat, Pimpri Chinchwad and Bhopal were placed in the first, second and third positions respectively. They were followed by Pune, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Jobalpur, New Town Kolkata and Chennai.
Kohima Smart City chief data officer, Kezhochole Rhetso told Eastern Mirror that Data Maturity Assessment Framework in layman's terms "is all about how a city manages its data," adding that it is a quantum of importance that a city is giving to its data and the accessibility it is creating to its citizens to access the data or analyse the data.
However, she stated that they also provide data about how they plan projects, not only for the Smart City projects but for the health, education and several otthers for a city from the air to food that citizens consume.
Rhetso informed that they had provided data about some of the general profile of Kohima city like literacy rate, growth of population, and numbers of wards in the portal, adding that they also provided data in various aspects like percentage of water supply in each ward, road connectivity, length of the urban roads, etc.
The officer apprised that they had participated and uploaded in the data portal for the second year while currently they are making an assessment on various aspects of the city like the population growth to provide data for the third consecutive year.
She also explained how they try to display the road network in the portal and how much it has paved and how it needs to be identified in a map or tabulated format.
'As such, we take the importance of data strictly before uploading it,' she said.
It was learnt that along with the chief data officer, a data officer and a data manager were working within the smart city.
Rhetso informed that they have a "data alliance" with all the important departments while data nodal officers have been nominated to co-ordinate with them.
"We obtain data that way and we do have a good data team in that way," she said.
However, it was learnt that some departments are yet to nominate their nodal officers for the same.
She maintained that some data such as the dropout rate of students were very difficult to obtain due to the non-availability of information from the concerned department and for which such information were uploaded as "not available".
Similarly, Rhetso explained how some data like that of immunisation status are difficult to obtain as it requires more time.
She also said that some concerned departments were yet to provide data in digital format for which they tabulate it to upload. "Still lots of improvement is there," Rhetso said.
Meanwhile, she informed that the Kohima Smart City data policy is prepared and in place now.
'When we put data into online portals, we need to have a data policy because in this assignment, the city cannot put its own data policy as there are categories of data classifications while there is some data which cannot be shared to everyone,' Rhetso said.
She stated that the field of urban development is very new to the state because importance has been given to rural development even up till today.
"All over the world, the focus is given to urban areas because all the important establishments are there in the urban areas and all people come to such places for job opportunities," Rhetso said, adding that "urban population is growing at a rapid rate; so our focus should be equally given to urban".
She stated that the local bodies in other districts are also trying to replicate the examples of Kohima Smart City.
‘So, it is to the best of our ability that we want to set a very good example for other local bodies which is a common goal for us,' she added.
