Guna’s journey towards an autonomous city, Madhya Pradesh, India
In this issue
Guna offers a distinctive perspective on autonomous-city development: an incremental, resource-conscious pathway for a Tier-3 city rather than a capital-intensive megacity model. This U4SSC case study organises Guna’s approach around agricultural and rural intelligence, inclusive public-service optimisation, and data-enabled environmental resilience. Early deployments include semi-autonomous drones for agricultural and municipal inspection, edge-based AI traffic monitoring, robotic sanitation equipment and trial autonomous waste-collection carts, supported by a City Data Office, partnerships and training for public officials. Reported outcomes include improved agricultural monitoring, a 28 per cent increase in waste-collection frequency, expanded e-learning access for around 2,500 students, a 14 per cent rise in digital-literacy enrolment, and stronger geospatial planning and flood mapping. The study is candid about limited connectivity and datasets, sensor-calibration problems, rural accessibility and equity gaps, weak local cybersecurity capacity, and possible job displacement. Guna’s experience shows that responsible autonomy in smaller cities depends on continued investment, workforce reskilling, local capacity, community-centred design and governance aligned with Responsible AI and U4SSC indicators.
More information available at: https://u4ssc.itu.int/
