India’s ‘Mission Transform Nation’ – Moving into the Next Phase

As the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs develops a strategy for the next phase of smart cities in India, it will surely reflect on the lessons learned by the hundred smart cities

By Jagan Shah

The Union Budget 2022 has placed emphasis on building capacity to manage planned urbanisation in India. This may herald a long-awaited recognition of urban planning as a means for achieving other development priorities, such as the shift to electric mobility, concepts like ‘battery as a service’, applications of drone technology, and digital education.

The Gati Shakti program, with its focus on ports, airports, highways, waterways, and public transport, will also need to converge in urban areas and harness the power of planning.

Cities are the last mile or the drivers of most infrastructure systems; they are demand generators as well as consumers. They are embedded in the Government of India’s approach to economic development.

Smart Cities

The Smart Cities Mission was conceived as a disruptor of business, as usual, departing from the piecemeal and haphazard way in which infrastructure is usually built-in Indian cities. It is aimed at embracing an integrated approach whereby a substantial area is fully upgraded with the required infrastructure and services, leveraging information and communication technologies, geospatial intelligence, evidence-based decision-making, and the principles of green, equitable, and safe cities to deliver ease of living.

Different Set of Projects

Each city has a different set of projects based on the specific characteristics of each city’s demography, economy, and geography. By 2024, once the projects in 100 smart cities are completed, the Mission will have delivered over 6000 projects with an investment of over 2 lakh crores, including projects for complete and safe streets, e-mobility, environment management, green open spaces, livelihood development, circular economy for waste, renewable energy generation, building energy management, water and sanitation, e-health, e-education, traffic management, energy-efficient street lights, child-friendly parks, and innovation hubs.

The 100 smart cities were selected through a competition that was open to all cities. As a result, we have cities ranging in size from ten thousand people to over ten million

ICCC

The integrated command-and-control center or ICCC in the smart cities proved their worth during the first wave of the pandemic when a large number of cities needed disease surveillance, contact tracing, and quarantine planning.

Disruption was coded into the concept of the ‘smart city in India, which is meant to be a ‘lighthouse’ that offers successful models for replication across the over 4000 cities of the country.

The 100 smart cities were selected through a competition that was open to all cities. As a result, we have cities ranging in size from ten thousand people to over ten million, which other cities of similar size could learn from.

The Mission logo, a butterfly-shaped out of pixels in tricolor, represents the “butterfly effect” that the Mission creates by devising local solutions that can be replicated far and wide. This process of transformation is already active, with cities learning how to plan, finance, and deliver projects of the kind that they never handled before. Over the past six years, city governments have started talking about the ‘internet of things, ‘smart’ assistive technologies, universal access, and safety and security. They have learned about mitigating air pollution and flooding, built affordable housing and sports facilities, renovated old markets, and upgraded heritage areas.

Scalability & Citizens Participation

Two aspects of the SCM have been neglected, and it can be hoped that the cities will address these in the next two years. The first is the scaling and replication strategy that each city was asked to propose in 2015, through which the successful pilots in one area would be replicated to cover the whole city. None of the cities have developed credible plans for abiding by this commitment.

The second, and related point, is that the buzz created by the SCM in 2015 was large because the area to be made ‘smart’ and the projects to be executed in the city were identified through an extensive citizen-consultation process. This has not been sustained, with the result that the public in most cities is unaware of the SCM and thus uninterested in putting pressure on elected representatives and city governments to deliver the full scope of the smart city concept.

Lessons

As the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs develops a strategy for the next phase of smart cities in India, it will surely reflect on the lessons learned by the hundred smart cities. It will also have to take into account the cumulative impact of other significant development over the past six years, including reforms and innovations in procurement, land use and real estate regulation, company law, revenue management and digitalization, especially of land records and municipal service delivery.

The impact of 5G will be profoundly felt, allowing cities to deliver services more efficiently through remote sensing and automation, and augmented and virtual reality applications may become more commonplace.

Challenges

The Ministry will need to conceive a strategy that supports cities with economic recovery after the pandemic. Whether it is for scaling and replication or for innovation, cities will need to raise finance. Green finance may help them invest in productive assets that are disaster-resilient and carbon neutral. A bankrupt city is not a smart city. Every effort must be made to incorporate financial sustainability into the smart city model.

The first generation smart cities have grappled with the technical challenges of delivering infrastructure and services and improving public spaces. The second generation should focus on economic productivity and financial sustainability. Smart cities need to be atmanirbhar (self-reliant) cities.

Shah is Senior Fellow, Artha Global, and former Director, National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA)

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