THE SMART CITIES DIGITAL PAYMENTS AWARDS 2018

  1. Introduction and Objective
    The Smart Cities Mission was launched in June 2015 with an aim to develop 100 Smart Cities by 2020 to promote development of physical, institutional, social and economic infrastructure.

    Smart Cities make use of cutting-edge technology across areas and sectors to enhance ease of living for their citizens. One of the most important areas of transformation is the digital payments space. Promotion of digital payments has been accorded high priority by the Government of India to bring our country to reap their advantages for the overall economy. The mandate is to provide facilities for seamless digital payment to all citizens of India in a convenient, easy, affordable, quick and secured manner.

    Digital payment is a way of payment in which both payer and payee use digital modes to send and receive money. It does not include cash, cheque or any other paper-based payment instrument.

    OBJECTIVE
    The Smart Cities Digital Payments Awards 2018 ‘100 days Challenge in 100 Smart Cities’ is part of this endeavor of MoHUA. The objective of these awards is to guide, motivate, recognize and reward the Smart Cities for promoting digital payments and carrying out innovative payment initiatives. This will not only reward Smart Cities at the forefront of digital payments but also act as encouragement for other cities to follow suite and strengthen their digital payments infrastructure and create awareness through promotion of digital payments amongst all stakeholders and provide citizens with multiple options to make digital transactions.

  2. Classification of Smart Cities for Awards
    The Smart Cities will be divided into 4 different categories based on their population. This will enable comparison of similar sized cities to provide an accurate overview of the top performers. The Smart Cities will be classified into 4 categories as below:

  3. Classification of Awards
    Three awards will be given in each category:
    • Best digital payments adopter: This award will be conferred to the Smart City that exhibits an overall excellence in digital payments across different channels and payments instruments to ensure anytime, anywhere payments for all.
    • Best digital payments innovator: This award will be conferred to the Smart City that exhibits the most innovative implementation of the digital payments options for its citizens.
    • Fastest growing Smart City focusing on digital payments: This award will be given to the Smart City having the highest growth rate in digital payment transactions by volume and value during the challenge period.

  4. Awards Evaluation Approach
    The awards will be conferred based on a 2-stage process. The stage I of the process will involve Smart Cities filling in a questionnaire based on the extent of promotion and enablement of digital payments carried out in the city. The questionnaire will be objective and will have to be filled out by each city and submitted within the deadline specified.

    Cities that will be short listed from the first stage will proceed to the stage where we will take a closer look at the implementation of various digital payments and their impact on the life of citizens. A detailed template will be shared with the selected Smart Cities for round 2 for evaluation. The criteria and evaluation framework for stage 2 will be shared with the cities selected after stage 1 filtration.

    Evaluation Committee chaired by Secretary, MoHUA and comprising other members shall form the Jury. In stage 2, the participants will be required to make detailed presentations to the evaluation committee in the final round. The jury will assess and perform detailed evaluation for the short listed Smart Cities in round 2 before the announcement of the final awards.

  5. Timelines
    The awards will consist of 2 stages. The cities are required to submit their responses to the Stage I questionnaire by 15th September. The list of short listed Cities from the first stage will be declared on 30th September. Subsequently, further evaluation of the short listed Smart Cities will begin wherein a detailed template will be shared with the short listed cities only. Detailed template will be shared by 15th October. Such Cities will be given time till 30th October to complete their submissions. After a thorough and comprehensive evaluation, the final results will be announced in about a month. Exact dates for declaration of awards will be announced later.

  6. Dashboard
    A dashboard for all Smart Cities is being created by MeitY, GoI to monitor the progress under this challenge. The details of the dashboard would be communicated separately.

    Every Smart City will be provided login id and passwords. Data for the dashboard will need to be filled on a daily basis. MoHUA will monitor the progress of the dashboard closely. The regularity of data compliance on the MIS would be a factor in the overall scoring metrics for evaluation.

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