GS Paper II
News Excerpt:
The Smart Cities Mission (SCM), a flagship program of the central government, has been shifted to low priority on this year’s list of poll promises and achievements.
What are Smart Cities?
- The term ‘Smart City’ has been used around the globe since 2009, after the great financial crash.
- The main objective is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure, a clean and sustainable environment, and give a decent quality of life to their citizens through the application of ‘smart solutions’.
- The central government in 2015 wanted to adapt to these global occurences and thus SCM was announced.
- A 100 cities were selected for five years under the mission.
- There is no standard definition or template for a smart city. In the context of India, the six fundamental principles on which the concept of Smart Cities is based are:
- The conceptualization of a Smart City varies from city to city and country to country, depending on the level of development, willingness to change and reform, resources, and aspirations of the city residents.
About the Smart Cities Mission:
- It has two main aspects:
- Area-based development which consists of three components:
- redevelopment (city renewal),
- retrofitting (city improvement),
- green field projects (city extension);
- Pan-city solutions based on Information and Communication Technology.
- These further comprised some six categories that would include e-governance, waste management, water management, energy management, urban mobility, and skill development.
- The mission was to be completed in 2020 and was given two extensions till June 2024.
- Governance Structure: An SPV (special purpose vehicle) led by a bureaucrat or a MNC representative and other major stakeholders was created and registered under the Companies Act. Thus, the governance structure widely varied from other existing governance structures in the country.
Where did the Mission falter?
- Bias in Selection: The selection of 100 cities on a competitive basis was challenging due to the diversity in existing urban realities. Urbanization in India is dynamic unlike in the Western world.
- Exclusionary Scheme: The SCM became an exclusionary scheme over time wherein not more than 1% of a city’s geographical area was selected for development. The biases in the selection of this area have also caught the public eye.
- Insufficient Budget: According to two major reports by McKinsey, to make Indian cities liveable, a capital expenditure of $1.2 trillion is required by 2030. In this context, ₹1,67,875 crore is less than $20 billion in nine years. This comes to around 0.027 % of the total requirement in urban India.
- Unfair Governance Structure: The SPV model designed for smart cities was not aligned with the 74th Constitutional Amendment, which led to many cities objecting to the governance structure. The design, according to critics, was too top-bottom.
- Displacement Issues: While executing smart city projects, there was displacement of people living in poorer localities.
- Urban Flooding: Some of the towns that have historically never been flooded were made vulnerable because of infrastructure development projects that spoiled or dismantled the water channels and contours.
