Varanasi's 3D Digital Twin Project Receives SKOCH Gold Award for Urban Development

The Varanasi Smart City 3D Digital Twin has been awarded the SKOCH Award (Gold) 2025 in the Urban Development category, recognising the implementation of a comprehensive urban spatial model for municipal governance.

Developed by Genesys International Corporation Ltd. for Varanasi Smart City Limited, the project was evaluated under the e-Governance stream. The SKOCH Award involves a multi-stage process including research validation, independent jury assessment, and review of governance impact.

The digital twin was designed as a city-scale platform for daily municipal operations rather than solely for visualisation purposes. The implementation covered areas within Varanasi Nagar Nigam limits and included a high-fidelity 3D urban spatial foundation organised into decision-ready layers for planning, monitoring, and inter-department coordination.

Data acquisition combined manned aerial surveys using LiDAR and optical imagery with terrestrial mobile LiDAR and 360-degree street-level panoramic imagery. This produced 2D and 3D base maps at 1:500 scale, high-precision elevation models, a 3D reality mesh, and a unified spatial database integrating multiple departmental datasets.

Sajid Malik, Chairman and Managing Director of Genesys International, described the award as validation of integrating high-accuracy city data with municipal workflows. He noted the project involved end-to-end implementation from aerial and street-level data capture to applications for departmental planning and response.

The platform supports several municipal functions including urban planning and development control, asset mapping and maintenance, project execution support, public safety and emergency response, and flood resilience planning. Integrated governance modules cover crowd management, solid waste management, road works management, water works management, flood management, and crime control.

The solution has been deployed at the Kashi Integrated Command and Control Centre, with departmental workflows executable through monitoring dashboards. Implementation included training, user acceptance testing, and ongoing operational support.

Genesys International specialises in geospatial technology, high-accuracy mapping, 3D city modelling, and enterprise spatial platforms for government and commercial applications.