Smart Cities- Is India on Track?

The Minister for Urban Development, Venkaiah Naidu, announced a list of 20 Smart Cities that are going to be taken up on a fast track on Jan 28, 2016 . This is a powerful step in the right direction and augurs well for the residents of the smart cities.

The selection process involved a competition among states who nominated potential smart cities.  The cities competed on a variety of matrices, including urban reforms and their plan of action in four key areas -- Swachh Bharat, Make in India, good governance and e-governance. 

The 20 Smart Cities selected are: 

Bhubaneswar, Pune, Jaipur, Surat, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Jabalpur,  Visakhapatnam, Solapur, Davanagere, Indore,  New Delhi, Coimbatore, Kakinada, Belgaum, Udaipur, Guwahati, Chennai, Ludhiana and Bhopal.

Overview Of Smart City As Per MoUD

Here is how the MoUD describes Smart Cities:

‘In the approach of the Smart Cities Mission, the objective is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of ‘Smart’ Solutions. The focus is on sustainable and inclusive development and the idea is to look at compact areas, create a replicable model which will act like a light house to other aspiring cities.’

(Source- MoUD Website)

What Is Needed To Make Smart Cities Viable?

While it is true that Smart Cities is an evolving concept and is defined differently by different entities, an announcement of Smart Cities itself will be of little relevance unless enabling measures are put in place as follows: 

1. Holistic Approach

Smart cities are meant to be looked at from a holistic perspective, which is to say that developing one aspect in isolation, for example, a world-class transportation system in a city alone will not make it a Smart City. The commonality of understanding of what a smart city should be has to come from one agency, so as to guide all the cities in their endeavor. In the case of the Indian Smart cities this is not necessarily the case as there are multiple agencies engaged with no clear direction from a single agency.

2. Visionary Leadership

It has been proved around the world that you need strong and visionary leadership to make smart cities a reality on a large scale. Considering that India is looking at 100 Smart Cities by 2022, this is all the more important. The experience of other countries that have set up Smart Cities has shown that visionary leadership supported by a strong commitment has enabled smart cities to be developed. This will be required at the Central, State and City level. 

3. Robust Governance Mechanism

Smart Cities by their very concept, envisage multiple disparate agencies coming together for a common purpose. The agencies that come together are not necessarily government agencies but also private sector agencies. In addition both public and private sector funds have to be deployed which means that these entities have to work together.

For all this to happen there needs to be an institutional mechanism that enables it. For instance, in several Smart Cities, SPVs have been set up with public-private partnership to oversee development of a specific area. Similarly, governance mechanism of local bodies has been altered to give them more powers to generate and manage revenues locally.

4. Innovative Funding Mechanism

For Smart Cities to be viable they will need to be self sustainable. As per the funding model currently under consideration, the Centre and states will equally split the overall cost of the project estimated at Rs 96,000 crore. The central government will provide on an average Rs. 100 crore per chosen city per year. The project cost of each smart city will vary depending upon the level of ambition, model, capacity to execute and repay.

However this alone is not enough. There has to be significant capacity building at the city level for the city based entities to raise finances to make the Smart City sustainable. For instance municipal corporations can raise funds through municipal bonds. Relying on government funding alone will make this entire project unviable.

In addition, over time, this initiative will see tremendous cost escalation and the ability of the Center to provide additional funds to deal with this, will be very limited. Raising funds is the key challenge as also is developing older cities with limited scope to overhaul. Heavily populated areas may need complete rebuilding which will then involve temporarily rehabilitating people and, in some cases, acquiring land.

5. Interoperability

Smart Cities and technology are inseparable. Whether it is surveillance technology or smart metering for utilities or intelligent health care, the fact is, technology is at the heart of Smart Cities. Given this, it is all the more necessary that interoperability be considered not only within systems in each Smart Cities but also between different Smart Cites. This would enable seamless sharing of data.

India has long been known for Islands-of-Automation, where disparate systems do not necessarily share information among each other. It is for this reason that many smarter cities have set up Integrated Command and Control Systems that enable city officials to monitor what is happening in the entire city seamlessly. 

6. Metrics Based Progress Monitoring

Smart city is not about inputs, it is about achieving outcomes. For something as ambitious as the Smart Cities initiative to be a success, a metrics based monitoring mechanism will need to be put in place. For instance, to measure the efficiency of eGovernance, the citizen centric governance mechanism set up will need to be monitored for number of citizens connecting to the government electronically, number of grievances received and the period within which it was resolved. Similarly, environment friendly measures will need to be result in lower pollution levels which will need to be measured against targets.

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About the Author: Srinivasan is an independent consultant working in the area of strategy and technology interventions in the public sector domain. He has worked in companies like IBM and TCS and has over 30 years of experience across 24 countries.

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