The   administration of the Indonesian city of Bekasi has launched an ambitious Smart City programme with the establishment of a command centre including real-time parking records and use of public monitoring application Qlue.

Amid criticism that the municipality should be spending resources on poverty and child malnutrition, Mayor   Rahmat Effendi went ahead with the use of IT platform in three locations that has actually increased municipal revenues from parking.

“Before the introduction of real-time parking records, we only received around Rp 6 million [US$456] a day, but since the system has been applied, we receive Rp 347 million a month,” he said.

However, there are still a number of obstacles to the introduction of a wider Smart City program, the   main obstacle being the mindset of officials.

Bekasi is among the satellite municipalities of Greater Jakarta that wants to be part of Smart City initiatives using the Qlue app to more effectively register and address residents’ complaints .

Qlue application is free for use by local authorities. “Costs will emerge if the app is layered with other dashboards, he said.