New Delhi’s civic agency will spend about 0.5% of the Municipal Budget to boost Information and Communication Technology

Schneider Electric India – the global energy management specialist and leader in energy efficiency – cited the latest India Infrastructure Research report titled ‘ICT in Urban Governance – Survey’ to stress that higher ICT  budgets were required for faster conversion of existing cities into Smart Cities. With civic agencies in 53 cities across India responding to the survey, the report revealed ICT adoption among cities varied according to their size, requirements, financial resources and approach to ICT by the city’s Municipal Commissioners and IT heads.

New Delhi was among 10 civic agencies in India with the highest municipal budgets for 2014-15. With a municipal budget of approx. INR 30,000 million, New Delhi will spend up to 0.5% or around INR 150 million on ICT deployment in 2014-15.

Stressing the importance of higher budget allocations and prudent spends on ICT, Anil Chaudhry, Country President and Managing Director, Schneider Electric India, said: “The present Government’s vision of building 100 Smart Cities will be contingent upon the efficient adoption of ICT solutions. In turn, this needs support at the ground level, along with robust budget allocations for ICT. Accordingly, spends should be increased and allocated budgets spent judiciously for the Government’s vision of Smart Cities to become a reality.”

In the case of IT budget spends, huge variations exist in the proportion spent by different civic agencies across India. More than 40% reportedly spend in excess of 40% of their IT budget, while another 13% spend 31-50%. Conversely, about 33% reportedly spend less than 5% of their IT budgets. IT spends are evenly spread across different categories. Most civic agencies spend less than 30% of their IT expenditure on software, maintenance, upgradation and hardware. Around 45% spend more than 30% on hardware and software.

Most civic agencies expect less than 10% increase in IT budgets over the next two years; a couple of them are planning a hike of more than 50%. About 60% plan to increase IT budgets by only 1-10% during the next two and a half years. Less than 10% plan to hike the IT budget by more than 50% during the period in consideration; and about 11% plan to increase it by 11-20%. Over the next two years, IT budget increase in most agencies will be either in the 1-10% or 11-20% range.