From Pollution to Progress: How Chandigarh’s ICCC Reinvented City Management

Chandigarh’s Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) transformed the city’s governance by uniting technology, data, and citizen engagement to tackle air pollution, waste, water scarcity, and urban heat. Despite funding gaps and public resistance, it created a replicable model of sustainable, resilient urban management.

Chandigarh, India’s famed “City Beautiful,” found itself battling a toxic mix of modern urban ailments by the early 2020s. Institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, the Central Pollution Control Board, and the Punjab State Pollution Control Board painted a grim picture of a city choking on pollution, watching its groundwater reserves shrink, its landfills overflow, and its summers grow hotter each year. For ordinary residents, these challenges translated into coughs that refused to go away, evening walks abandoned due to burning eyes, and traffic jams that seemed endless. The city that once symbolized modern planning and clean living was at a crossroads, desperately in need of a fresh model of governance. That turning point came with the creation of the Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC), a bold initiative under India’s Smart Cities Mission.

The Brain of the Smart City

At a cost of ₹295 crore ($35.5 million), Chandigarh’s ICCC was formally commissioned in March 2022 as the city’s “brain.” Conceived by commissioner K.K. Yadav and executed in collaboration with Bharat Electronics Limited, the command center unified more than 25 urban services under one roof. Its giant video wall projected real-time feeds from over 2,000 AI-enabled CCTV cameras and IoT sensors spread across the city. From traffic violations to air quality, from water leakages to power usage, the ICCC provided a unified dashboard for quick decisions. Equipped with SCADA systems, machine learning models, and disaster response modules, it turned fragmented governance into data-driven coordination. When Anindita Mitra later took over as CEO of Chandigarh Smart City Limited, the system expanded its forecasting capabilities, earning national recognition in 2024 as the country’s top-rated smart control hub.

Building Blocks of Transformation

The journey to a smarter, cleaner city began in 2016 with hard assessments of environmental and infrastructural stress. Officials and experts identified four major threats: worsening air quality, inadequate waste management, declining groundwater levels, and intensifying heatwaves. From there, a roadmap took shape that balanced technology with sustainability. Public transport was electrified with 80 buses and bolstered by 5,000 bicycles across 600 stations. Traffic lights were optimized with AI to cut idling and fuel consumption. Waste management became a citywide movement with 489 GPS-enabled trucks, color-coded household bins, and upgraded processing plants that turned refuse into fuel. The Pink Material Recovery Facility, largely run by women, became both an environmental and empowerment success. Creative efforts like Project Arpan, which transformed temple floral waste into incense sticks and dyes, highlighted how cultural practices could be adapted for sustainability. At the same time, smart water meters, rainwater harvesting campaigns, and wastewater reuse reduced groundwater dependence by nearly a third.

Technology Meets Crisis Response

The power of the ICCC lay not only in monitoring but also in predicting and responding to crises. AI-driven models forecast spikes in pollution during stubble-burning seasons, allowing authorities to impose generator restrictions before air quality deteriorates further. Real-time traffic algorithms suggested diversions ahead of jams. When torrential monsoons flooded parts of Chandigarh in 2023, flood-mapping tools guided emergency teams and rerouted commuters, minimizing chaos. Temperature sensors triggered cooling stations during heatwaves, while adaptive traffic signals smoothed bottlenecks in key corridors. The command center also strengthened disaster preparedness with its ability to aggregate data across agencies, ensuring that health officials, police, and civic bodies worked in unison.

Struggles, Successes, and the Road Ahead

The path to this transformation was far from smooth. Funding shortfalls slowed the rollout of systems, while bureaucratic bottlenecks left critical projects like AI traffic lights delayed. Early on, fewer than two dozen of more than 700 planned cameras were operational, blunting enforcement capacity. Public skepticism also loomed large: residents resisted waste segregation, commuters resisted cycling, and citizens worried about privacy as surveillance expanded. Cybersecurity threats were real; one 2022 hacking attempt briefly disrupted traffic systems. And even with all this technology, extreme weather such as the 2023 downpours reminded the city of its infrastructural limits. But over time, persistent outreach and community involvement shifted behavior. Neighborhoods began competing to achieve 100% waste segregation. School programs turned children into “water warriors.” Cycling clubs popularized car-free days.

The results spoke for themselves. Landfill overflow dropped by 40% as smart bins and optimized routes took effect. Methane emissions and groundwater contamination fell, while newly planted corridors reduced the urban heat island effect. The bike-sharing program logged more than 875,000 rides, preventing roughly 875 tonnes of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. Fuel-efficient routing for garbage trucks saved ₹25 lakh in diesel each month. Most importantly, citizens began to feel the difference: fewer jams, cleaner streets, more reliable municipal services, and safer public spaces.

By 2025, Chandigarh had shown that modernization need not come at the cost of sustainability. It stabilized its air quality despite rising vehicles and construction, conserved water through smart meters and harvesting, and built resilience against floods and heat. The ICCC became a symbol of a new social contract between governance, technology, and the people. Yet, as officials admit, no city can fight pollution and climate risks alone. Air and water do not respect borders, and neighboring towns must adopt similar strategies for regional success.

Chandigarh’s Integrated Command and Control Centre has proven that innovation, political will, and citizen engagement can reshape urban governance. The model is not perfect, and challenges remain, but it offers a replicable path for cities across India and beyond: harnessing technology not merely for efficiency but for resilience, sustainability, and the promise of a healthier future.