Digital Technologies and the Pandemic: The Rise of ICT-Enabled Governance Strategies for Combatting COVID-19 in the Smart City of Bhubaneswar, India

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, this rise of ICT-driven infrastructures and services became manifold and the sector of urban governance and healthcare management benefitted the most from such digitalized changes. The already ‘Smart’ Bhubaneswar City, the provincial capital of the eastern state of Odisha, India, saw innovation in their governance strategies through usage of digital aids like drones, launching of new smartphone-based applications, city-level managed online citizen database, management and evaluation of healthcare units, helpline channels, and so on. Thus, it was interesting and imperative to explore this interface between digital technology and COVID-19 ushered governance strategies in Bhubaneswar Smart City. The study analysed how administration-led COVID-19 interventions incorporated digital technologies from a highly politicized perspective in monitoring and for surveillance of the city population during the lockdown and quarantined phases. By adopting an explorative lens, the study collected qualitative data through in-depth telephonic interviews across four categories of respondents – slum, non-slum, city officials, and transgender populations, over a period of roughly two years (late 2020-early 2022). The study further indulged in content analysis of social media platforms that highlight the incorporation of digital technologies in smart governance processes in general as well as for combatting and monitoring the COVID-19 situation in Bhubaneswar Smart City and the existing lacunas therein.