INDIA SMART CITIES AWARD CONTEST (Syllabus: GS Paper 1 - Indian Society)

Context:  A total of 845 nominations were received for ISAC 2022 from 80 qualifying smart cities.

Key Points

• The India Smart Cities Award Contest (ISAC) is organized under the Smart Cities Mission, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India. 
• This is one of the important activities initiated under the Mission, where pioneering city strategies, projects and ideas are recognized to award the exemplary performance, enable peer-peer learning and disseminate best practices. 
• The ISAC recognizes and reward the cities, projects and innovative ideas that are promoting sustainable development across the 100 smart cities, as well as stimulating inclusive, equitable, safe, healthy and collaborative cities, thus enhancing quality of life for all.
• In the past, the ISAC has witnessed three editions in 2018, 2019 and 2020. 
• The fourth edition of the ISAC was launched in April 2022 during the ‘Smart Cities-Smart Urbanization’ event in Surat. 
• The ISAC 2022 award had a two-stage submission process consisting of ‘Qualifying Stage’, which involved overall assessment of the city’s performance, and the ‘Proposal Stage’ which required the smart cities to submit their nominations for six award categories as follows:
• Project Awards: 10 different themes,
• Innovation Awards: 2 different themes,
• National/Zonal City Awards,
• State Awards,
• UT Award, and
• Partners Awards, 3 different themes