Summary paper about Smart City Mission in India

Smart City Mission in India Al-Zoubi, AbdelRahman International University of Catalunya Paper on the Political Ecology of Urban Transformation, Dr Hug March

Smart City Mission, is an urban renewal and retrofitting program, has been launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 25 June 2015, with a total cost of US$14 billion. The initiative mission to label 100 Indian cities as 'smart'. The initiative based on competition between cities – state level - in order to be selected for funding. 20 cities have been selected as a first round where they called the lighthouse for all India City Challenge. From a state level to national level competition, the challenge of choosing the best nominated city that deserve the funds.

Implementing the projects as proposed will take 5 years – until 2019/20 - thereafter, the mission keeps going with an evaluation process from the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD). (AAR, 2015) The question of smart city has a different connotation in the Indian context apart from the global definition, as it's varied from city to another. Generally, is to achieve the aspirations and need of the citizens, by developing the entire urban eco-system. The objective of the Smart City Mission is to "provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of 'Smart' solutions" (Smart Cities Mission, Pg 1, 2017). The scheme comprehensively covers the main four elemental pillars for the development – institutional, physical, social, and economic – infrastructure.

(AAR, 2015) As comprehensive features for the smart city as proposed, the city should promote mixed land use, inclusive housing, preserve open spaces, promote variety of transportation means and create walkable localities, making city governance more citizen friendly, giving an identity to the city, and apply the 'smart solution' to infrastructure and services (Smart City Features, 2017). In order to achieve these features, three strategic components are integrated into areaAL-ZOUBI, ABDELRAHMAN

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based development, such as; city improvement 'retrofitting'; city renewal 're-development'; and city extension 'greenfield development'.

Retrofitting for an existing built-up area, by introducing planning solutions to achieve smart city objectives, the selection of these areas can made by consulting citizens, and depending on the existing level of infrastructure services. Re-development as a replacement of the current built environment and co-create spaces, which defined as better infrastructure for mixed land use, and increased density. This model will work with Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and consultation of the citizens. The expansion of the city for more disadvantaged population, greenfield development will work on that, to create more affordable housing, smart solutions with innovative planning and financing tools. (Smart Cities Mission, 2017) The stakeholders vary depending on the level of the mission is taking, mainly it has three levels; National; State; and City level, the latter level considered the major level to address the citizens' needs and their priorities. The government promoter the participatory planning process – bottom-up approach – so that can assure that development covers all layers of society, and take out the efforts from government's back.

Rural to urban migration accounted the main factor for India's urban-population growth. In order to achieve sustainable urban development, it is considered highly complex and controversial task. "While the smart city is often pitched as an urban utopia, capable of bypassing traditional routes to urbanization, critics are increasingly concerned about whether technology can provide a quick fix to India’s biggest urban challenges." (Abigail Spink, 2019) Diganta Das argued that reality shows the top-down approach as a planning tool, can serve the elitist by bringing their needs to reality, on the other hand, neglecting the care for actual residents' needs that was initially the motive for such mission. He adds by involving the private sector as primarily stakeholder specially in smart city projects, it risks the interest of corporation, and labeling cities as 'for-profit'. (Abigail Spink, 2019) Moreover, smart city mission focuses on the holistic development of the cities rather than just making them technologically advanced. Problems like proper sewage system, proper

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infrastructure, housing, planning and availability of other basic amenities will be addressed in this plan as well. Major challenges being faced, such as; financing; lack of center-state coordination; availability of Master Plan; no time figure attached to the plan; availability of facilities; corruption.

Financing is to be one of the biggest challenges of the plan, where the government work in hand with private companies and banks in order to fund the project. Lack of center-state coordination, the result of planning won't come true unless co-ordination between various government bodies can be done, which is need a proper regulation for planning both horizontal and vertical co-ordination. India not that equipped when it comes to skilled manpower and advanced technology requirements for developing 100 smart cities. This mission requires lot of skilled efforts, cannot be acquired by creating skilled labor and capacity building, where there are no allocated funds, its huge case of needs for more researching, and training. Corruption was meant to be from the first as this is the root cause for all above challenges. Both at center and state level corruption is responsible for all the coordination mismatch and time lag happening. The financial constraint also somehow creeps in because of this issue. (Varinda Garg, 2017)

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Reference · What is Smart City, Smart Cities Mission, 2017. Link: http://smartcities.gov.in/upload/uploadfiles/files/What%20is%20Smart%20City.pdf · AAR, Prime Minister launches Smart Cities, AMRUT, Urban Housing Missions, Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, Press Information Bureau, 2015. Link: https://pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=122788 · Home/About Smart Cities/Strategy, Smart Cities Mission, 2017. Link: http://smartcities.gov.in/content/innerpage/strategy.php · Home/About Smart Cities/Smart City Features, Smart Cities Mission, 2017. Link: http://smartcities.gov.in/content/innerpage/smart-city-features.php · Abigail Spink, Debating India’s smart city vision, Cities, Geographical, 2019. Link: https://geographical.co.uk/places/cities/item/3355-india-smart-city · Varinda Garg, Major Challenges For Upcoming Smart Cities In India, IIFL, 2017. Link: https://www.iifl.com/blogs/major-challenges-upcoming-smart-cities-india

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