TRIBHUVAN UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING

IOE, PULCHOWK CAMPUS
PULCHOWK, LALITPUR

MODULE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A RESEARCH PROPOSAL ON
ANALYZING CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES TO DETERMINE THE
FEASIBILITY OF SMART CITIES IN CONTEXT OF NEPAL

Submitted By:
Purushottam Adhikari
(075/MSUrP/013)

Submitted To:
Dr. Sanjay Upreti
Ar. Barsha Shrestha

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Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3
Need and important of research .................................................................................................................. 4
Problem statement ....................................................................................................................................... 5
Objectives of research .................................................................................................................................. 5
Validity of research ....................................................................................................................................... 6
Methodology................................................................................................................................................. 6
Research Methods .................................................................................................................................... 6
References .................................................................................................................................................... 8

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Introduction
The United Nations Economic and Social Council has stated that there is no standardized
commonly accepted definition of a smart city (United Nations Economic and Social Council,
2016). It could mean different things to different cities in different countries regarding their
level of development and cultural perspective. Deakin defines the Smart city as one that utilizes
ICT to meet the demands of the market (the citizens of the city), and that community
involvement in the process is necessary for a Smart city (Deakin, Mark (22 August 2013). A
Smart city would thus be a city that not only possesses ICT technology in particular areas, but
has also implemented this technology in a manner that positively impacts the local community.

Government of Nepal introduced the concept of Smart City in Nepal through the Budget Speech
in 2072-73 to develop 10 cities including Palungtaar, Waling, Nijgadh and Lumbini as Smart City.
Based on this acceptance of uniqueness of Smart in the context of Nepal, National Planning
Commission has prepared the concept note in 2073 regarding Smart City in Nepal. Which
identifies the Smart city as indicated by the introduction of Information Technology in the
public service by public participation, accessibility, sustainability along with improvement in
lives of people.

National Declaration made on the Budget Speech of 2072-73 as;

“The development of smart city will be initiated by laying the optical fiber in the mid-hill
highway with the utilization of rural telecommunication development fund. Continuity will be
given to establish the rural information centers.”

The need of establishment of new smart cities in Nepal has been highlighted in the
Government’s Policies and Programs of 2073-74 in point no. 65 as follows:

“Cities will be made the base of economic growth by developing rural-urban inter-linkages.
Cities will be developed as per the concept of ‘One city, One Identity’ in order to promote
tourism and diversify trade and business. Few smart cities will be built in various parts of the
country. ‘National Building Code’ will be strictly enforced. Arrangement will be made for the
construction, repair and maintenance, protection and supervision of the Government-owned
buildings through a single entity. For the establishment of well-managed city, one integrated
city or a valley development authority will be constituted in each State.”

The budget for the coming fiscal year 2073/74 (2016-17) has further visualized the
development of modern, green and information technology-friendly smart cities as:

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“Keeping Palungtar of Gorkha at a center, smart city master plan will be developed and
implemented in the surrounding areas of Marsyangdi. In order to develop Walling, Lumbini and
Dadeldhura including 10 cities as modern and prosperous smart cities, infrastructure
construction work will be initiated through preparing the master plan.”

According to Himalayan news services, Kathmandu Valley Development Authority (KVDA) has
set the target of completing the detailed project report (DPR) of four smart cities in Kathmandu
Valley within next year. KVDA plans to equip the smart cities with essentials of smart cities, like
smart energy, governance, technology, healthcare, water, education, waste management,
green buildings, infrastructure, well-managed transportation, public safety, citizen service,
stadium, large-size ponds, greenery, town centers, etc.

Need and important of research

According to the UN Habitat (2015), worldwide, about 330 million households currently live in
substandard urban housing or are financially stretched to pay housing costs that exceed 30
percent of their incomes. According to the report, it is likely that “this number could rise to 440
million by 2025 if current trends are not reversed.” The issue affects everyone from slum
residents living on the margins to those belonging to middle-and low-income households.
Although the government has promised to make the country prosperous with zero death from
starvation, no promises have been heard on the issues of urban housing where excluding a few
wealthy households; many people live either in rented apartments or in dilapidated houses in
slums. 1

Despite of this, urban housing problems, Nepal has been in the middle of a mass urban
migration a trend that started during the 1994-2005 insurgency period. Since then the spatial
concentrations and urban primacy in Nepal increased as high as in Bangladesh, Pakistan,
Mongolia, and Indonesia. Urban slums have been increasing in the country due to poor
planning. Even in these substandard urban slums, housing and rent affordability is beyond the
abilities of medium and low income people.

Nepal has no option but to make informed-decision by using digital technology. Once housing
arrangements are made, the deployment of sensors and analytics will help cut the misuse of
utilities such as water and electricity. The smart city applications can deliver significant quality-
of-life benefits without causing harm to the average person’s incomes. Smart technologies
cannot be a “great equalizer,” nor can they solve housing crises in the absence of broader
strategies.

1
https://kathmandupost.com/opinion/2018/07/20/smart-city-initiatives

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As city populations grow and urban sprawl proliferates, issues with economic and social
progress are often magnified. These challenges not only affect a city’s quality of life, but also
put added stress on traditional infrastructure, increasing the need for energy-efficiency
austerity and resource conservation. Smart city technology can provide city governments with a
large infrastructure buffer that helps them endure and overcome these issues in the future.

On the other hand, Digital security is another threat cities face when they try to implement
smart city projects. As personal data gets uploaded into the cloud, it is often shared with digital
devices, which, in turn, share the information among multiple users.

Problem statement
Lack of proper infrastructures, congested traffic, changing climate with heat islands, erratic
power supply, lack of safe drinking water, and weak security systems are staring at us. Instead
of improving these conditions the government has been adding to the number of
municipalities.

According to Nepalese media, there are a big question is will be able to turn our rather chaotic
cities into smart cities?

Smart cities will result in creation of businesses, jobs, infrastructure (served with real time
data), sustainable real estate, communications, market viability, and non-interrupted essential
services to residents. The core of smart city lies in virtual real-time data center fed by
automated sensor network. These data are used to regulate kiosks, parking meters, cameras,
smart phones, implanting medical devices, the web, and other similar activities including
social networks.

Can our ruralopolises meet these conditions? What can be the possible hurdles and how can
they be overcome?

Objectives of research
• To identify the opportunities of smart city in the context of Nepal
• To identify the indicator of the smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, smart
economy, smart living and smart environment
• To identify the different major of challenges in smart city like: privacy and security, high
energy consumption, implementation cost, etc.

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Validity of research
The technology of the 21st century and its potential applications enable us to consider
ambitious goals for digital cities. The information revolution indeed represents a unique
opportunity to build more livable and socially fair cities, where citizens’ lives can constantly be
improved and where economic growth is created through innovation and new business-models.
Hence, it will put our economies towards a more sustainable path, generating opportunities for
all, and getting the most out of existing resources, in a self-sufficiency perspective.

The design, construction and maintenance of intelligent system is highly challenging. The
particular requirements for building an intelligent system generally depend on the nature of
applications, constraints imposed by hardware and network infrastructure. Based on these,
some of the specific and unavoidable issues that the designer must face while building
intelligent system are public safety, healthcare, transport, energy etc. (Amrita Ghosal, 2018)

Methodology
The methodology used in this research is directed towards obtaining the key objective i.e. to
analysis the challenges and opportunities to oversee the feasibility of adopting smart city
concept in context of Nepal. This will be an exploratory type of research in which inductive
reasoning will be used, in contrast to deductive reasoning this is because deductive reasoning
follows a positivist approach where causal relationship are applied to test out an hypothesis
whereas inductive approach is guided by the research objective to narrow down the scope of
study. (Wilson J., 2010)

Exploratory research seeks merely to investigate the issues of work and does not seek to give
final and definitive solutions to existing problems. Typically this type of research is carried out
to analyze a topic that has not yet been clearly defined. Exploratory research design does not
aim to provide the final and conclusive answers to the research questions, but merely explores
the research topic with varying levels of depth. It has been noted that “exploratory research is
the initial research, which forms the basis of more conclusive research. It can even help in
determining the research design, sampling methodology and data collection method”. Singh, K.
(2007)

Research Methods
This research uses qualitative and quantitative methods. The qualitative methods will observe the
variables of the research through the perspective of respondent which will have multiple
interpretation. For example, in this research authorities, planners, common people etc. may
have different interpretation on what a smart cities actually is. In the quantitative methods

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correlation will be done primarily to examine the relationship between different variable
associates with the context of smart cities throughout the research.

The quantitative method will focus in collecting data which will be objective in nature and
quantifiable in real setting. The variables identify in quantitative data collection will undergo
varies statistical test like correlation analysis to determine the significant relationship between
the variables, regression analysis to examine the relationship between dependent and
independent variable and so on. Also the qualitative methods in data collection will be
employed to seek for the subjective interpretation of research problem. In this method field
survey, online survey, face to face, online interview, etc. will be carried out in order to
determine the variables that wouldn’t have been otherwise determine if only quantitative
methods were relied upon.

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References
• Amrita Ghosal, S. H. (2018). Building Intelligent Systems for Smart Cities: Issues, Challenges and
Approaches.

• Deakin, Mark (22 August 2013). "From intelligent to smart cities". In Deakin, Mark (ed.). Smart
Cities: Governing, Modelling and Analysing the Transition. Taylor and Francis. p. 15. ISBN 978-
1135124144

• Concept of Smart City, Shrawan 2073: National Planning Commission, Nepal

• Final Report: Preparation of Concept and Indicators for Smart Cities in Nepal (CS-18-072/73):
New Town Coordination Office, DUDBC, Nepal
• Josep-Ramon Ferrer, « Barcelonaâs Smart City vision: an opportunity for transformation »,
Field Actions Science Reports [Online], Special Issue 16 | 2017, Online since 01 June 2017,
connection on 30 April 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/4367

• https://kathmandupost.com/opinion/2018/07/20/smart-city-initiatives

• “Essentials of Business Research: A Guide to Doing Your Research Project” SAGE

Publications, p.7

• Singh, K. (2007) “Quantitative Social Research Methods” SAGE Publications, p.64

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