By Sajid Malik, Chairman & MD, Genesys International Corporation Ltd.
A city is not a collection of roads, buildings, utilities and transport systems. It is a network of systems that continuously affect one another. Yet many urban decisions are still made by looking at these systems separately. The problem is not only to construct roads, housing, utilities, and transport facilities. The task is to comprehend how all these systems interrelate and what would be the implications of the measure undertaken.
The Delhi Master Plan 2047 reflects the change in planning paradigms and finds expression. At its heart is the notion of developing a 3D Digital Twin by combining the use of GIS data, live sensor feeds and government database information. With such a tool, planners would be able to go beyond individual project level thinking to comprehend the interaction among urban systems and also the possible consequences of development interventions before implementing them.
This shift is already taking shape across Indian cities, with Digital Twin initiatives being developed for Varanasi, Mumbai, Pune and Guwahati to create detailed digital representations that can support urban planning and infrastructure management. These city-level deployments demonstrate how Digital Twins are moving from a conceptual planning tool to a practical layer of urban intelligence.
Beyond a 3D model
Through the convergence of geospatial data, 3D models, imagery, infrastructure data, sensor networks and data sets, the Digital Twin becomes an ever-changing digital reflection of the physical world. This, when combined with analytics and artificial intelligence, enables planners to have a better understanding of the city that they are planning.
The real value is not visualisation. It is the ability to simulate, monitor and manage.
This becomes especially critical for urban renewal missions such as Dharavi and Ayodhya, where redevelopment is not simply about constructing new buildings, but about reshaping mobility, housing, utilities, public infrastructure and the movement of people at scale. Digital Twins can help planners understand these interdependencies, test scenarios and identify potential infrastructure pressures before they become costly physical challenges.
Simulating before building
One of the most important opportunities is to test decisions before they become physical realities.
Consider a new road, metro corridor, flyover or development. A Digital Twin can place that proposal within the surrounding urban environment and allow planners to evaluate different scenarios.
These questions can be examined digitally before construction. For India, this “test before you build” approach can identify conflicts earlier, improve coordination and reduce the risk of expensive changes later, improve project confidence overall further over time at scale.
Monitoring a living city
Cities do not remain unchanged after a master plan is approved. Buildings emerge, roads are widened, utilities expand and environmental conditions shift. An old map which was accurate in depicting a city a few years back may not yield the same level of information nowadays.
The Digital Twin technology can help make an up-to-date representation by combining geospatial data that has been updated along with real-time data where possible.
The importance of this will increase as India urbanises. The World Bank expects 600 million people to live in India’s towns and cities by 2036, representing around 40% of the population, compared with 31% in 2011.
Connecting the city through a digital twin
Transport is connected to where people live and work. Water and power networks are connected to population and development. Drainage is connected to terrain and rainfall. Infrastructure decisions can have consequences across multiple systems.
Yet these datasets often sit within different departments. This Digital Twin will allow all of these layers to be viewed in one unified spatial setting, aiding in decision-making and making connections that might not have been made otherwise.
India is already building the foundation. PM GatiShakti has brought Central Ministries and States/UTs onto a common geospatial planning framework. By August 2025, its Network Planning Group had evaluated 293 infrastructure projects worth ₹13.59 lakh crore. The opportunity now is to make this geospatial intelligence dynamic at the city level.
India’s digital twin opportunity for smarter cities
The National Geospatial Policy 2022 identifies the development of a National Digital Twin for urban centres as an objective. This gives India a clear policy direction: building digital representations of the physical environment to strengthen planning and urban management.
The private sector has an important role in translating this vision into usable platforms. 3D Digital Twins is rooted in the belief that accurate geospatial representation should become a foundation for better urban decisions.
From data to urban intelligence
The next big step forward will involve integrating the Digital Twins with AI technology. AI technology can detect patterns; the Digital Twin can offer the real-world and geographical context to interpret the detected patterns.
When combined, they can address the following practical questions: Where does the infrastructure face pressure? Which locations are prone to flooding? What will be the effect of a new construction project on traffic?
Where should public infrastructure be prioritised? What may occur in case of disruption of an important road or utility system?
Here is what we need to achieve: shifting from gathering more data to knowing the city better, and from knowing to making smarter decisions.
Building cities we can understand
India’s urban future will involve hundreds of millions more residents, infrastructure investments and interconnected systems. The goal of a Digital Twin is not to design a beautiful city on computer screens. Instead, the goal of the Digital Twin is to build a virtual environment that helps test out various decisions and evaluate different future scenarios before anything physical comes to life.
India must shift from static maps to dynamic maps of the physical world, which enable cities to analyze, simulate, and foresee changes. It is wrong to question the amount of technology that could be used for developing a smart city. What should be questioned is the ability of technology to allow us to understand our city sufficiently to enable us to make sound judgments.
Digital Twins can give cities the ability to see themselves more clearly, anticipate future scenarios and address potential challenges before they become physical problems proving the foundation to transform how we simulate, monitor and manage the cities India is building for the future.