1.1 A glimpse of Agartala
Agartala, the capital of Tripura, is a landlocked city and a unique type compared to other cities of India in so far geographical location is concerned. A landlocked city means no scope or a little scope through other territories i.e., there is no direct routes which is essential for national trade a cheaper means of transport for goods unlike air routes. In this case, the only one opening of Tripura is Assam- Agartala route which is circuitous in nature and passes through series of hills and forest. The three sides of Tripura is surrounded by the neighboring country, Bangladesh. The major problem arises for import and export business which is essential for any city that wants to develop itself keeping pace with the global trend. Because no city can be self sufficient and national or international trade becomes essential in the context of development. A landlocked city always has to depend on neighboring states. They have no direct access to global market. They lag behind so far as globalization is concerned. Therefore, some extra effort, attention and attitude are required to transform this city into a smart city. Even it may not be feasible to implement all the required activities at a time. Gradual implementation of the activities is suitable for this type of place. The geographical location of the Agartala city is represented in the following map (fig-1). The government of India recently announced that hundred cities of the country will be transformed into smart cities. Adequate attention and efforts obviously are required during the coming few years to upgrade a city to a smart city which needs to encompass different standard parameters to fulfill the conditions of a smart city. Both the union and state government have pivotal role to play as to help make this journey towards a smart city satisfying all conditions as discussed in subsequent stages. On the basis of author’s real life experience as well as different categories of citizens’ opinion, some of the important parameters along with their sub-parameters which are essential for the city are chosen subsequently for computational work of the present study.
1.2 Literature Review
The up gradation of many cities to smart cities is going worldwide. There are examples galore in this regard. It is a measure of immense pleasure that necessity of up gradation of many cities in India has been realized as well in the recent past. A systematic literature review has been conducted in the following paragraphs embracing the meaning o smart city, various important dimensions of smart city, works on some project management with a view in implementing it on smart city development, various MCDM tools which has been used on ranking purpose of different alternatives in other areas and useful for ranking of different activities in the present project network.
Public health management, which is an inevitable step in the present pandemic situation, was incorporated in urban planning (Junior et al, 2021). Authors mainly considered the concept of city health management during crisis period like pandemic situation due to COVID-19. Authors also cited the previous epidemic situation in the context of confrontation with such crisis moments on behalf of city management strategies.
A taxonomy tree has been proposed with a view to fighting against COVID-19 (Rahmani et al, 2020). Authors’ systematic literature reviews are beneficial to the people for acquiring knowledge about the infectious disease and eventual self protection techniques.
Assessment of living environment deprivation was studied aiming at hotspot formation in megacities in the context of COVID-19 (Das et al 2020). They developed relation between condition of living environment and hotspots of COVID-19.
Many earlier works on smart cities have been reviewed (Reddy and Crutzen, 2017). They mentioned proponents and opponents views on smart cities. They also proposed a 3RC frame work which was Restrictive, Reflective, Rationalistic and Critical schools. This framework critically analyzed different stages of the development of smart city. Finally, they concluded that smart cities differ in various ways from the point of view for which they actually build up. But the issues which were not addressed by the authors are consideration of various parameters of different stages of the development of smart city, strategy on completion of smart city project, minimization of gap between proponents and opponents views on smart cities to reach a common goal etc.
It was stressed on the two things viz. Internet of Things (IOT) and ambidexterity of the firms through alliances for smart city project by Stefano Bresciani et al (2017). They elaborated on the multi dimensional capabilities of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) including knowledge management as a special mention. But some vital issues might be included like different social and environmental parameters other than digital technology related parameters in connection with smart city, sequence of establishment or installation of the different ICT related sub parameters from nascent stage, total project completion time in case of facilitating the parameters discussed here for a city which was converting into a smart city.
The roles of digital data system for various aspects of a smart city were discussed by Karima Kourtit et al (2016). They also analyzed different decision support tools for complex urban management issues. They tried to establish the ability of digital data system for urban management and policy. Some important issues raised in mind from their work like basic parameters of a city which is in nascent stage in the development of a smart city, practical approach of utilizing digital data system particularly, ICT to the different basic criteria of a smart city, other important parameters besides digital data system or ICT etc.
Work on fire site selection in Kathmandu Metropolitan city, Nepal was studied by Pandav Chaudhury et al (2015). They used Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). During the selection process, they considered four criteria by group decision making process. But they did not highlight other important issues for the betterment of Kathmandu city. It would be better if they included judgment of the results obtained by using any other MCDM technique other than AHP.
The gap found in the literatures in connection with local policy and politics for smart city mission in India was highlighted by Sarbeswar Praharaj et al (2017). They also addressed the complex planning and governance mechanisms in so far as smart city mission of India is concerned. They recommended for framing a sound smart city policy. Finally, they suggested strongly the integration and coordination among the central, state and municipality level in connection with various project implementation. But it would be an excellent inclusion if the authors made the specific ranking of the hundred Indian cities to be converted into smart cities based on their existing scenario for an in-depth idea of policy framing for each individual city to fulfill the mission.
A case study of a smart city considering city of Zaragoza (Spain) was analyzed by Daniel Belanche et al (2016). They mentioned some beneficial factors of smart cities. They holistically reviewed hard and soft domain of smart cities. Hard domains were infrastructures, transport, mobility and natural resources. Soft domains were culture, social inclusion, economy and welfare.But their research findings were highly specific and mostly related to the soft domain of the smart city. Moreover it comes to the mind thinking the practical scenario regarding sequence of the components, related to the soft or hard domains, to be implemented during conversion of a city into a smart city.
On quality of life through sustainable development was focused by Isa Baud et al (2001). Among various avenues of sustainable development, they stressed on solid waste management system. They performed detailed case studies on three cities viz. Chennai (India), Manila (Philippines) and Lima (Peru). They also discussed alliances like public-private, public community, community private and their significant roles for developing solid waste management system. But the authors did not highlight the other avenues of sustainable development. Their discussion was restricted to only solid waste management system. The three cities chosen for case studies were already developed in many ways. It was not discussed there the right implementation policy particularly when a small town is likely to convert into a smart city. Also, among different alliances, they did not comment on a suitable one for a small town or city. Moreover, to find out the suitable one, it is meaningful to determine weights of different alliances to play their roles.
Sustainable food networks in the case of Bristol in UK were studied by Mathew Reed and Daniel Keech (2017). They highlighted the gap between constituents of Internet of Things like Facebook, Twitter etc. and presented potentially of citizen accessible technological offer in so far as sustainable food network for smart city development is concerned. But the other important parameters for smart city development were not highlighted by authors. Also they could find out the sequence of implementation of sustainable food networks for practical purpose. Moreover it can be added ‘the project completion time’ if any city is willing to implement sustainable food network with a view to converting into a smart city.
Hokou (house hold registration system) in Sanghai city of China was highlighted by Lime Li et al (2010). They analyzed the beneficial effect of hokou system. They elaborately discussed different types of hokou and residence card available at different stages along with their status. The authors strongly recommended for hokou system implementation to make genuine citizenship of a particular municipality or city which in turn, can contribute to the economic growth of the country. But it was not revealed from this work that the type of city which is exactly suitable for the hokou system. Moreover, it requires discussing in detail the steps to implement hokou system to a city from its nascent stage during conversion into a smart city.
Formation of public spaces in urban areas was studied by Christiane Brosius and Tina Schilbach (2016). They addressed two case studies- Delhi and Sanghai. They stressed on the importance and sustainable development in relation to public spaces. But the authors did not focus on action on cities which have already no space or lack of public space. It would be nice if the authors could give an idea on approximate numerical figures like space between two residence or flats in a city, wideness of streets etc in a particular city. It required mentioning the distance of various public utility places like garbage collection point, market place, crematorium, bus depot etc. from the residential area.
Similarly, in 2017, many authors added at least one new dimension in the literature in so far as smart city is concerned. The role of citizens for transforming a city into a smart city was investigated by Anthony Simonofski etal (2017). They stressed on the involvement of citizens to achieve the smart city goal. They categorized citizens as democratic participants, citizens as co-creators and citizens as ICT users. The authors explained a case study designing a framework in connection with citizens’ participation in smart cities. Tourism which can play an important role on smart city was enlightened by Romano Fistola etal (2017). They opined that tourism is a driving urban function that can make cities more efficient and attractive based on some government conditions. The improved quality of life in smart cities was focused by Nader Mohamed et al (2017). They mentioned information and communication technologies (ICT) have vital role to achieve the goal of smart city. They elaborately discussed on the Cloud of Things (CoT) and Fog computing in the context of smart cities. ‘Smart Region’ instead of ‘Smart City’ was highlighted by Fabrizio Arneodo et al (2017). The authors realized the necessity of development and provision of facilities beyond a particular boundary of a smart city and that is why they mentioned the term ‘region’. The authors showed a case study of a region in Italy. Smart grid as an integral component of smart city along with other necessary components was focused by Libing Wu et al (2017). They proposed a new scheme which is efficient identify- based encryption scheme with equality test (IBEET) for smart cities. The authors elaborately explained the features and beneficial effects of their model in connection with smart grid for a smart city. The performance of Low-Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs) which is also called LORA network, fundamental enablers of Internet of Things for smart cities was evaluated by Davide Magrin et al (2017). Urban safety system (U- safety) was developed by Zhe Peng et al (2017). They inferred safety index for urban area from multiple cross-domain urban data. They opined that urban safety information like crime and emergency is important so far as inhabitants and new travelers are concerned.
But it has not been found implementation of project management for smart city development work. Project management has significant role to make the smart city mission successful, smooth and satisfactory to the citizen. Thus, in the present work an in-depth study on smart city development has been done by incorporating project management concept as well as by applying MCDM techniques.