Urban Update Nov 2014

ISSN 2349-6266

RNI No DELENG/2014/57384

UrbanUpdate Setting The Agenda For Tomorrow’s Cities

Cities of Tomorrow Indian cities, propelled by ICT innovations, are on the cusp of taking a giant leap towards digital governance

Volume I - Issue VII

NOVEMBER 2014

CENTRE STAGE

Transcending mobility

Integrated solutions for smart and sustainable transport

View Point

Sanitation for all India faces major challenges to end open defecation

Rs 100

All India Institute of Local Self Government

Community Based Interventions

Professional Empowerment Project Management

Advisory Services Customised Training

Knowledge Management Capacity Building Information, Education and Communication (IEC)

Policy Research

All India Institute of Local Self Government No. 6, F-Block, Bandra Kurla Complex, TPS Road-12, Bandra-East Mumbai-400051, Maharashtra Tel.No.: +91-22-26571713, 26571714, 26571715, Fax: +91-22-2657 2286, Email : contact@aiilsg.org

Urban

Dialogues 22 November 2014 India Habitat Center, New Delhi

Housing For All

Organising Team

The theme of the first among the series will be ‘Housing for All’, as the Ministry of Urban Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) has envisioned the concept of housing as one of its top priorities. The round table will have experts speaking how it is viable for the common man with right regulation.

Agenda Session I – Housing shortage in Indian cities ♦♦ Current scenario of housing in Indian cities ♦♦ Why the shortage? ♦♦ Is PPP the way ahead to bridge the gap

Session II – Feasibility of affordable housing ♦♦ Financial feasibility for affordable housing ♦♦ Ideal business models ♦♦ Co-ordination between govt & urban developers

Session III – Slum re-development in metropolis ♦♦ Re-development & rehabilitation- the solutions ♦♦ How do we stop creation of new slums in cities? ♦♦ Civil society partnership with the central & state govt

Session IV – Inclusive urban housing ♦♦ Is red-tapism & corrupt practices a big hurdle? ♦♦ Learning from other cities globally ♦♦ Housing for all by 2022, challenges ahead?

Organaiser

Dr. Jatin Modi President AIILSG

Ranjit Chavan Director General AIILSG

Dr. M Ramachandran Former Secretary-UD Government of India

Raj Liberhan Former Director India Habitat Centre

Apresh C Mishra Managing Editor Urban Update

Co-Host

For speakers and sponsorship requirements, please contact Prathiba Raju: + 91 9711669512, prathiba@urbanupdate.in Jessy Iype: + 91 9810020938, jessy@urbanupdate.in

www.dialogues.urbanupdate.in

INSIDE

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Inside Cover story

16 Cities for tomorrow Indian cities in the next decade will witness a plethora of ICT innovations 22 Turning Smart with apps

ULBs are transforming into an efficient service provider through e-services 25 Proof for good governance

An innovative initiative public disclosure and accountability 26 Suvidha is the new comfort

Local bodies have started to help people acquire suitable benefits of digitisation one on one

28 Concocting e-services DeitY is a key enabler of the e-governance initiative in the country Profile

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I’m a CPO, not CM Devendra Fadnavis, has handson experience in Urban Management

View point

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Sanitation for all India needs to confront social-cultural reasons to get over ‘sanitation crisis’

Center stage

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Transcending mobility Cities need to adapt integrated smart solutions that are eco-friendly

vox pop

40 Utilising efficient means Provision of adequate energy will continue to be a challenge for the government Urban Agenda

46 FDI for ‘Smart Cities’

100% FDI in sector gives a flip to smart cities and housing for all projects RegularS

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November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

11 Pin Point

44 Events

EDITORIAL

Dr Jatin Modi President-AIILSG Ranjit Chavan Editor-In-Chief & Publisher Director General-AIILSG, dgaiilsg@gmail.com Apresh C Mishra Managing Editor, apresh@urbanupdate.in Lojy Thomas, Aiilsg Associate Editor, lojy@urbanupdate.in Prathiba Raju Assistant Editor, prathiba@urbanupdate.in Abhishek Pandey Principal Correspondent, abhishek@urbanupdate.in Jessy Iype Desk Editor & Reporter, jessy@urbanupdate.in Meenakshi Rajput Graphic Designer, meenakshi@urbanupdate.in Volume I - Issue VII For Feedback & Information Write at info@urbanupdate.in Printed and published by Ranjit Chavan on behalf of All India Institute of Local Self Government. Printed at Cirrus Graphics Pvt Ltd B-61, Sector-67, Noida – 201301 Uttar Pradesh. Published at Sardar Patel Bhavan, 22-23, Institutional Area, D Block Pankha Road, Janakpuri, Delhi-58 Phone No. 011-2852 1783 / 5473 Despite careful selection of sources, no responsibility can be taken for accuracy. The magazine assumes no liability or responsibility of any kind in connection with the information

Digital cities in offing

T

echnology has played a role of catalyst in improving governance of cities worldwide. The increase in ICT usage in governance has enabled city managers to operate and monitor cities better than ever before. Indian cities too are gearing up to embrace digital innovations in governance.

Among other technological advancements in 20th century, Internet is considered one of the greatest inventions. It has improved local governance by making a variety of civic services online and expanded its horizons for serving multiple purposes such as operational efficiency of municipal corporations and improving quality of service delivery.

According to reports, the number of Internet-connected devices (12.5 billion) surpassed the number of human beings (7 billion) on the planet in 2011, and by 2020, Internet-connected devices are expected to number between 26 billion and 50 billion globally. The numbers could be more if countries are able to adopt digital innovation particularly Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data effectively in city management and operation of businesses.

With 100 smart cities coming up in India, the policy makers understand the urgency of creating a suitable atmosphere for making governance digital. IoT offers connectivity between devices, and human and devices. The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has come up with a policy document that tells about the government’s plans for implementing the IoT and focuses on developing IoT products specific to Indian needs in all possible domains. The government also aims to create an IoT industry in India of USD 15 billion by 2020.

However, IoT and Big Data also pose a major challenge for the government.

The security of the data collected and responsibility of ensuring privacy is essential. Another challenge is capacity building of citizens and government employees in the country where digital literacy is at dismal low. The solutions to these problems are at the heart of the successful metamorphism towards digital governance as it only will ensure that the benefits of the innovations reach to the last person.

thereof. All right reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part is strictly prohibited without written permission from the publisher.

Ranjit Chavan dgaiilsg@gmail.com

www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

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Underground pipeline to ferry beer

LONDON: In order to save time and money spent in transporting beer via trucks, a brewery in the city of Bruges in Belgium has made an plan to shift all the frothy beer from their old factory to new factory for filtration, bottling and shipping through an dedicated underground beer pipeline. After getting the city council approval, the De Halve Maan brewery will move about 6000 litres of beer every hour through a 2.8 km underground polyethelene pipeline. The city council said that this innovative plan will save time and money while reducing emissions and congestion that the city faces as the beer is shifted currently via trucks.”This plan would reduce the amount of transport by heavy goods vehicles by 85 percent,” Franky Dumon from the city council said.The brewery will cover the installation and road repair costs.

Complain parking woes via Facebook, WhatsApp NEW DELHI: To curtail illegal parking in the national capital, the Delhi traffic police have asked people to complain through WhatsApp and its Facebook page by uploading photos and video clips. “If anybody is charging money for parking and not giving a receipt for that, they can tell us about such activities through our traffic police’s Facebook page,” said Special Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Muktesh Chander. One can also lodge their complaint through Delhi Police’s anticorruption helpline number 9910641064 or call traffic helpline number 1095.

Seven slums to come under RMC Odisha High Court ordered the state government to include seven slums near Rourkela Steel Plant under the limits of the proposed Rourkela Municipal Corporation.

Dedicated bus service for tourists Aurangabad Corporation would start a dedicated bus service for tourists that will cover historically important spots.

SMC prevents river pollution

Siliguri Municipal Corporation this year deployed workers to collect the idols as soon as they were immersed.

KURDF to make shopping malls

To increase revenue from its land, Kerala Urban and Rural Development Finance Corporation (KURDF) has decided to construct a multi-storey shopping mall cum office complex at Eranhipalam.

Queen’s Company: President Pranab Mukherjee being escorted by Majesties King Harald V and Queen Sonja while attending a state banquet hosted by the King, at Royal Palace, Oslo, Norway

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Dissolve NCR planning board : Delhi HC

NEW DELHI: Unable to fulfil its functions and purpose, the central government should either dissolve the National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB) or take over its functions to ensure compliance of the Regional Plan, the Delhi High Court has said. Recently, a division bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw asked the central government to ensure that the purpose for which the NCRPB was created is fulfilled in letter and spirit by ensuring the developments in the respective sub-regions of the NCR are in accordance with the Regional Plan.

Dengue cases inflict economic burden NEW DELHI: The whopping number of dengue fever cases in India inflicts a massive $1.11 billion economic burden on the country each year in medical and other expenses, and it is “almost 300 times greater” than officially reported, a study said. “ India had nearly six million annual clinically diagnosed dengue cases between 2006 and 2012,” Donald Shepard, health economics professor at Brandeis University said. A team of researchers from Massachusetts, Delhi, Tamil Nadu made a study estimated that overall annual economic cost of dengue in India is about $1.11 billion annually or $0.88 per year for every person in the country.

Container shipping service India-Myanmar started CHENNAI: To enhance the India’s Look East policy and boost trade, the staterun Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) has started a container shipping service, to Myanmar. “The launch of the IndiaMyanmar container service is a direct offshoot of the government’s Look East Policy by using northern Myanmar to reach Mizoram and other north eastern states using Sittwe port in Myanmar,” shipping Secretary Vishwapati Trivedi said. Initially the service will be available every 15 days.

Once the service is successful, private operators can chip in. The service rotation will be Chennai, Krishnapatnam, Yangoon, Colombo and Chennai.

NEWSCAN

Facebook founder ‘likes’ Digital India initiative

Facebook CEO Mark Zukerberg collaborated with the Telecom Ministry to improve broadband connectivity in the country and develop applications on utility services in which user need not pay internet charges Team Urban Update

DELHI: Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, met the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss latter’s plans to digitize the country by implementing Digital India programme and his own initiatives to help India to improve internet literacy in the country.

A wide range of issues revolving around the innovative usage of Facebook as a platform to engage with a large audience in the service of humanity were discussed. Prime Minister briefed Zuckerberg about the Swachh Bharat Mission and Digital India initiative and asked him to identify some domains of Digital India where Facebook can get involved and help.

Facebook CEO said that he is extremely excited about the Digital India initiative of the Government of India. He said that Facebook wants to work with India in the fields of healthcare and education, providing a range of services to the people.

He added that the social networking website will help in the creation of the Clean India Mobile App and it would be launched soon. This would give a strong impetus to the Swachh Bharat Mission.

During the meeting, PM pointed out that a lot of terrorist elements are using social media platforms to recruit members. He said that it is unfortunate and they need to think

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Facebook is planning to launch applications on basic utility services in India for which people need not pay any internet charges as the company is doing in Zambia in partnership with Indian telecom company Airtel

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of the role social media can play to stop terror. Modi recalled how he used social media during campaigns such as tracking the missing children during his tenure as Chief Minister of Gujarat and how it gave wonderful results. PM appealed Facebook founder to promote India’s rich tourism potential through Facebook. PM asked him to look at how to enhance Internet literacy along with improving Internet connectivity.

In his two-day maiden visit to India, Zukerberg also met the Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to discuss expanding reach of internet including by using alternate technology. Prasad said that Facebook has shown interest in joining Digital India program.

Prasad asked Facebook CEO to partner in National Optical Fibre Network program which aim to connect 2.5 lakh villages by high speed broadband by 2017 to which Zuckerberg has agreed.

Zuckerberg said: “Connecting more than a billion people with internet is not only going to improve lives of people in India but helping innovation and imagination of Indian people will help turn around the world and we are very excited in opportunities in India.”

Facebook is also in process to launch applications on utility services for which customer may not have to pay any internet charge as the company is doing in Zambia in partnership with Indian telecom major Airtel. www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

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‘Clean environ can make Swachh Bharat successful’ NEW DELHI: Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Smriti Irani said that the Clean India Campaign mission can be achieved only if a clean environment is provided to every child to help them become “change agents”. “ PM’s mission of a Clean India by 2019 can only be achieved if we provide good clean environment in schools, including functional toilets to every child, so the child becomes a change agent for a larger goal that we have set for ourselves,” she said.

She reiterated the government’s resolve to provide toilets in every school with a separate one for girls within one year.

India improves on Global Hunger Index NEW DELHI: The hunger situation in India is no longer “alarming” as the country now ranks 55th out of 76 Asian countries and it has improved as regards child nutrition, a global report said. Though ranking ahead of Bangladesh and Pakistan, India is still behind Nepal and Sri Lanka, as per the 2014 Global Hunger Index (GHI). The GHI has noted that India has become the first provisional national child underweight estimate in eight years. “The country has made a significant improvement over the last estimate of 43.5 percent children under five being underweight in 2005-2006 while the figure was 30.7 percent in 2013-2014,” the report stated. India no longer ranks second-to-last in the world when it comes to children being underweight. It has moved to the 120th spot among 128 countries.

Makeshift toilets mandatory at worksites

Central government has made it compulsory to have makeshift toilets at worksites to prevent open defecation in urban areas.

French help for ITS in HP A French team visited Himachal Pradesh recently to conduct a feasibility study for Integrated Transport System (ITS).

IMC to setup wasteto-energy plant

To improve waste management system, Indore Municipal Corporation would set up a waste to energy plant that will be fuelled by 300 metric tonne (MT) of municipal waste.

SDMC starts zerogarbage plan

South Delhi civic agency initiated zero-garbage plan and invited partners to help reduce waste dump on landfill sites

Meet on urban development: UD Minister M Venkaiah Naidu met the Executive Director (UN-Habitat), Dr Joan Clos, at the 5th Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference on Housing And Urban Development, at Seoul

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Reliance Group to invest Rs 60,000 cr in MP

INDORE: Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani will invest Rs 60,000 crore in Madhya Pradesh over the next 15 years, they have already pumped in over Rs 30,000 crore in the state in four growth areas. “We are committing ourselves to double our investment in the state from the current Rs 30,000 crore to Rs 60,000 crore by 2020 in our four key growth areas -- coal, power, cement and telecom,” Anil Ambani informed at the Global Investors Summit of the state government.” We commit ourselves to partner the state of Madhya Pradesh to become the leading industrial state in the country,” he said. “Our current operations employ over 25,000 people in the state.

PM promises transparent work culture NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a portal for provident fund, which will provide trust and ease of doing business. He said that such measures will go a long way in changing India’s work culture and promoting social security.

He also unveiled the Shram Suvidha portal, a Labour Inspection Scheme, and the portability of social security through a Universal Account Number for Employees Provident Fund (EPF). The prime minister also said that “E-governance is easy governance. It builds trust for transparency.”

UD ministry take steps to decongest Delhi NEW DELHI: The Urban Development ministry has formed a 17 member high -powered committee, who will come out with a detailed blueprint of a decongestion plan for the traffic snarls in the national capital. The Delhi government has been asked to look into improving public transportation system, strengthening the taxi network and impose a congestion charge. DMRC has been asked to on redesigning all Metro stations to facilitate multi-modal integration and the process of examining and suggesting proposals for extension of the Delhi Airport Metro Express Line.

NEWSCAN

Andhra rice to reach Tripura via Bangladesh AGARTALA: Three small ships ferrying five thousand tonnes of rice from Visakhapatnam port in Andhra Pradesh reached Tripura via the Ashuganj river port in Bangladesh.

This is the second consignment of rice via Bangaldesh to Tripura .

Earlier in August, 5,000 tonnes of rice had reached the Tripura capital through the same route. “The rice is being ferried via Bangladesh to avoid the long and mountainous surface road up to Tripura via Assam and Meghalaya,” Bhanulal Saha, Tripura Food, Civil Supplies and finance Minister informed. The eight northeastern states, including Sikkim, are dependent on Punjab, Haryana and other bigger states in

India for foodgrains and essential commodities.Train services in Tripura, Manipur, Mizoram and southern Assam stopped from October 1 as the tracks would be converted from metre to broad gauge and the conversion work is scheduled to be completed by March 2016, and the food grains supply via ship is on. The Bangladesh government in the first phase agreed to transport 10,000 tonnes of foodgrains without charging any duty under a special transit facility. The transportation via Bangladesh is much easier as road connectivity is a big factor for the mountainous northeastern states which are surrounded by Bangladesh, Myanmar, Bhutan and China.

‘Centre will facilitate economic First driverless metro line in Paris growth of states’ NEW DELHI: Informing that centre and state are not competitors or enemies but they are complementary, Prime Minsiter Narendra Modi assured that centre will facilitate investment and economic growth to each and every state, irrespective of political affiliation of the state government. “The Centre will stand shoulder to shoulder with all states, irrespective of political affiliation of the state government, to facilitate investment and economic growth.

But each state government should come forward to work together in The Centre will stand the spirit of “one and one - eleven,” shoulder to shoulder with Modi said. Delivering his inaugural all states, irrespective address at the “Invest Madhya Pradesh - Global Investors Summit of political affiliation of the state governments, to facilitate - 2014” at Indore, Modi informed that in his recent summit level investment and economic interactions with Japan, China growth of the states and the US, “investment worth 100 billion dollars had applied for a visa to India. “The Centre and states are Narender Modi not competitors or enemies; they Prime Minister are complementary. It is now upto the states to grab a share of this investment,” he added. Emphasising that India’s strength is inherent in its states, Modi said if India needs to be developed, the states must go forward.

“India being a country of youth, and therefore employment is the primary aim of all investment initiatives,” he added.

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MUNICH: Siemens equipped about 250 kilometers of metro line in Paris with signaling technology for driverless operation. Siemens is one of the biggest technology provider in this sector. Driverless operation can increase the capacity of a metro line by up to 50 percent because the trains can run at shorter headways. In Paris, the automatic operation will achieve a service interval of 85 seconds as Siemens has received an order from the Paris transit authority RATP (Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens) to supply the train control equipment and operational control system for the extension of a driverless metro line. An intelligent, energy-optimized running profile ensures that full use is always made of the journey time. Trains do not arrive “over-punctually”; instead, they adjust their speed automatically to avoid unnecessary energy consumption. The metro carries 725,000 passengers every day and links east and west parts of the city. www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

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‘Transparency must for urban development’

JAIPUR: Union urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu said that transparency and accountability is needed to provide quality service to urban residents. To find practical solutions for development of infrastructures, several proposals were mooted by participants of the workshop. “To provide quality services to the urban people, there should be transparency and accountability in the system,” Naidu said. The minister asked the delegates to find out possibilities on developing satellite towns, heritage cities, malls and special hubs.

UP to boost tourism along Agra-Lucknow-Varanasi LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh will soon construct a “historical arch” along AgraLucknow-Varanasi and they would be illuminated the ancient heritage buildings and monuments in the state capital and allot additional funds for laying roads around major tourist spots in the state.

CM Akhilesh Yadav said that various measures is taken to tap the potential of the state. Arrangements were being made to illuminate the ancient heritage buildings and monuments in the state capital.

Basic infrastructure facilities were being improved around key monuments and a MoU was signed with FICCI for UP Travel Mart. Noting Uttar Pradesh is bestowed with world class monuments, historical and religious sites, he asked the state tourism department to create a good environment around tourist sites.

Solar Panels must in new buildings in Hyd Telangana government is planning to make installation of roof-top solar panels mandatory for new buildings in Hyderabad, to provide for better and efficient energy needs.

LED street-lights in Kolkata

With an aim to promote energy-efficiency, Kolkata corporation would install three lakh LED streetlights in the city.

Urban 20-20 project launched in Kerala Chief Minister of Kerala Oommen Chandy inaugurated Urban 20-20 project recently. It aims at preparing fault free comprehensive project reports for civic bodies.

GIS survey to mark illegal buildings Vijayawada corporation held a GIS-aided survey to identify illegal structures came up in the limits of the corporation.

Becoming Smart: Demonstration of smart class under Digital India framework during a public information campaign at Indore, Madhya Pradesh

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November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

‘Public health in India is a disaster’ NEW DELHI: The state of public health in India is in a state of “disaster” and the country should go beyond to provide good public health said Nobel laureate and renowned economist Amartya Sen. Delivering a talk on ‘The Relevance of Nalanda in the Contemporary World’, as part of the Nalanda Distinguished Lecture series, Sen said that in India the government spends about one percent of the GDP on public health in comparison to China’s three percent. “We need to go beyond” to provide good public health to the people,” he added.

Coastal cities must become climate resilient NEW DELHI: To draw the focus of urban developer and policy makers to the ardent need of making coastal cities resilient, The Energy and Resources Institute in association with the US Agency for International Development organised a national conference on Climate Resilient Coastal Cities recently. Three reports—Case Studies on Panaji and Visakhapatnam, and a Working Paper Planning Climate Resilient Coastal Cities: Learnings from Panaji and Visakhapatnam, India were released. The reports highlighted how to deal with the impact of sea level rise and other climate parameters like rainfall and storms on the infrastructure and the wellbeing of people living in coastal cities.

Essel group to invest Rs 7500 cr in Smart Cities

INDORE: Essel Group chairman Subhash Chandra announced recently that his company would invest Rs 7500 crore in Madhya Pradesh to develop five Smart Cities—Gwalior, Ujjain, Sagar, Jabalpur and Dewas. The development of integrated Smart City project in these cities is expected to generate employment for over 20,000 people. Chandra said, “I was personally thrilled to hear the announcement of 100 smart cities by the PM because we were also thinking on those lines.” He added that the group has already invested Rs 5,000 crore for infrastructure and utility developing projects.

NEWSCAN PIN POINT

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The 19th century was the century of empires, the 20th century was the century of countries, and the 21st century will be the century of cities Pranab Kumar Mukherjee, President of India

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Shankar Aggarwal Secretary UD

First we need to spread awareness and instill in the mind of every citizen that cleanliness is important. We will start with cleanliness drive, segregation of waste, and banning plastic would be done. It is a big challenge but we are sure that in five years we will able to make India clean

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Anil Ambani Reliance Group, Chairman

We do not keep our temples and religious places clean as they should be. So let us all take this responsibility and keep our religious places clean. Let’s make each and every temple and place of worship clean in order to accomplish the Swachh Bharat Mission

Kochi Metro is progressing well and would be completed in time bound manner. It is said to run its maiden train by Dec 31 2015

BUZZ

Countries that don’t engage women in the workforce lose up to 27% GDP per capita Bill Gates @b-gat

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M Venkaiah Naidu UD & HUPA Minister

Hundred Smart Cities will come up. Some by converting present cities and some by having satellite towns around those cities and some by combining two cities into one by building a new city in between.

This is the plan. Final shape will be given during the month of November and then it will go to the Cabinet

Oommen Chandy Kerala Chief Minister

Clean air, Clean water and solid waste management will be a step in the direction of Swachch Bharat Prakash Javadekar @PrakashJavdekar

Urban infrastructure created in Singapore and their systems for managing the human habitat offer some important lessons Vasundhara Raje @vasundhara BJP

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After 67 years India finally has a policy on Mental Health with an action plan. Feel satisfied to release it today. Pray things change now Dr Harsh Vardhan @drharshvardhan

www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

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LA City introduces plan to encourage urban farming

LOS ANGLES: With an aim to encourage urban farming on empty and blighted lands in Los Angeles, City Council members Felipe Fuentes and Curren Price introduced a motion calling landowners to receive tax breaks for leasing vacant property for agriculture recently. “There are thousands of vacant, unproductive land lots throughout Los Angeles,” said Fuentes, who represents the 7th District. “By converting empty parcels into urban farms, we can encourage local economic development, green our communities and provide produce in neighborhoods that lack access to fresh foods.”

Kalam pitches for ‘carbon neutral’ cities

HYDERABAD: Former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam stressed on the need of building ‘carbon neutral’ cities for ensuring healthy living conditions for people and coming generation. He expressed his concerns on the deterioration quality of environment in Indian cities and its impact on the health of people during his address at a public event at Hyderabad recently.

Talking about his idea of Smart City, he said, “It should have a population of not more than five million, generate its own power through green sources, be a vibrant economy where everyone has access to clean energy and clean water, use bio-fuel and insist on rainwater harvesting, and is full of parks and trees. In short, it should be the flag-bearer of eco-friendly habitats, which aim at complete carbon neutrality.”

GHMC to construct waterless urinals

Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation constructed 10 waterless and odourless public urinals in the city.

Ahmedabad to get India’s first ITS

Ahemdabad corporation in collaboration with Zero-Sum Ltd. launched a pilot project on real-time traffic information

German solution to solve water crisis A consortium of 350 German organizations will collaborate with Centre for Sustainable Water Technology and Management to resolve water related problems in the state.

Chhattisgarh city buses to have Wi-Fi

To cope with the Digital India initiative of the NDA government, Chhattisgarh is all set to provide Wi-Fi connections in buses operating on routes of schools, colleges and universities.

Health Expo: Health Minister Harsh Vardhan seeing the exhibition during the 6th World Ayurveda Congress and Arogya Expo organised at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi

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November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

118 local bodies to rev up for clean Ganga

NEW DELHI: With an aim to check pollution in River Ganga, the representatives of more than 100 local bodies from five states –Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal–would formulate a plan in accordance with the policies of Ministry of Water Resources and Ministry of Urban Development. A meeting was recently held to check the release of untreated sewage from 118 cities in five states to the river.

Uma Bharti, Minister for Water Resources, and M. Venkaiah Naidu, Minister for Urban Development, discussed the Ganga pollution issue and possible measures to be taken to address the problem, said a senior Urban Development Ministry official.

Germany to give 4m Euros for urban sanitation NEW DELHI: Germany has joined hands with the Ministry of Urban Development to improve sanitation standards in urban centres in India and it would provide four million Euros apart from assisting the government in executing sanitation programs with the help from international experts in the domain. India and Germany signed an ‘Implementation Agreement on Support to National Urban Sanitation Policy’, a statement from the Ministry of Urban Development said.

Canada offers technology for ‘Housing for All’ NEW DELHI: To help India in meeting its housing shortage with state-of-the-art public utility services, Canada offered technical assistance to support India in its flagship scheme Housing for All, and Smart City Project. Canadian Minister of International Trade Ed Fast, in a meeting with Urban Development and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu, made this offer during his recent visit to India. Ed Fast said that Canada has expertise in wood-based housing technology, including in multistoried construction, which India can consider to meet its ambitious housing targets. Life span of such houses is about 60 years and is amenable for renewal.

NEWSCAN

World Bank funds solar energy project in Beijing

BEIJING: With an objective to raise public awareness of renewable energy and inspire actions to help build a sustainable urban future for China, World Bank has decided to fund installation of solar Photovoltaic rooftop panel of 100MW in 800 primary and middle schools in Beijing under the project ‘Sunshine Schools’. Chongwu Sun, a senior environmental specialist at the World Bank, said, “Supporting the Sunshine Schools Program is in line with the Bank’s commitment to increase renewable energy investments.”

Smart City Tech market to touch USD 174 billion SAN FRANCISCO: With the developing countries including India making efforts to make smart cities, cumulative global investment in smart city technologies is expected to touch USD 174.4 billion by 2023, a recent report ‘Smart Cities’ from Navigant Research said. According to the report, Asia Pacific is likely to become the largest smart city market by 2015.“Smart city pilots around the world are demonstrating the benefits of technology innovation to cities,” says Eric Woods, research director with Navigant Research. “Now, city leaders must show how these technologies can address the day-to-day concerns of citizens, by developing new forms of engagement.

Rajasthan signs pact with Singapore SINGAPORE: To promote foreign direct investment and improve basic urban amenities in Rajasthan, the Chief Minister of the state Vasundhra Raje signed three key partnership agreements with Singapore firms during her recent visit to Singapore.

The state government signed agreements with the Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE), Hyflux and ITE Education Services (ITEES). As per the agreement, SCE will work in urban development and solutions and water management. Hyflux will work to explore the possibilities of collaborating in water treatment, and setting up of desalination and defloridisation plants.

While, the ITEES will study improvisation of the Industrial Training Institute, Udaipur.

Housing complex by CPWD: UD,HUPA minister M Venkaiah Naidu inspecting the General Pool Residential Accommodation Complex of 400 Quarters built by CPWD

BMC to digitise ration cards

World Bank gives $100m to fight TB in India

PMC on WhatsApp

For improving communication between officials of different department, Pune Municipal Corporation joined messaging service WhatsApp.

MUMBAI: In a bid to curb the spread of Tuberculosis in India, the World Bank and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria jointly announced an aid of USD 100 million to India recently during a team of World Bank team’s visit to Maharashtra. The World Bank aid will be used to improve quality of diagnosis and to evolve strategies to expand public sector TB services, such as scaling-up capacity for drug resistance testing to all 29 states and 7 Union territories in the country, as well as engage with private health care providers in order to reach cases diagnosed and treated in the private sector.

Prepaid coupons to set up cracker stall

UN-Habitat calls for action for slum dwellers

Odisha government has decided to digitise new ration cards for the people living in the limits of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation.

To ease licensing for selling crackers, Chandigarh Municipal Corporation sold prepaid coupons to those who wanted to set up fireworks’ stalls.

Multi story buildings proposed along Jaipur Metro Rajasthan government proposed a plan to approve construction of multi-story buildings along Jaipur Metro line and provide extra floor ratio to builders.

NAIROBI: UN-Habitat, on this year’s World Habitat Day, called for urgent action to address the plight of those living in slums.

UN-Habitat organised an event in which the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the UN-Habitat Executive Director Dr. Joan Clos were present. In his speech Dr. Clos said, “To achieve sustainable development and a life of dignity for all, we must address issues of slum dwellers. This year, World Habitat Day is devoted to giving a voice to slum dwellers. Often, people in the slums live in near-anonymity — no address, no census and no idea when their living conditions will improve. He added that by learning from their experiences, city planners and policymakers can enhance the well-being of a significant portion of the human family. www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

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NEWSCAN

UP government laid stone of IT City Project

LUCKNOW: With an aim to improve infrastructure and provide better services to people, Uttar Pradesh government in partnership with the HCL Technologies laid the foundation of its ambitious IT City project at Lucknow recently. CM Akhilesh Yadav said UP government has taken several path-breaking decisions to strengthen UP’s infrastructure, from building four-lane highways to distributing free laptops and bringing metro rail project to Lucknow. The IT City project will come up as Chak Ganjaria City along LucknowSultanpur National Highway. About 530 acres of this land pocket will be developed for residential purposed by the Lucknow Development Authority.

‘Rejuvenating Yamuna on high priority’ NEW DELHI: To ensure the water supply is enhanced in the city, Delhi Lt governor Najeeb Jung recently chaired the first meeting of the multi-agency centre on Yamuna and said rejuvenating the river would be high on the priority. The Unified Centre for Rejuvenation of River Yamuna was set up with a three-pronged strategy which includes cleaning, developing the riverfront and increasing water supply. Jung voiced the need to increase the quantum of water in Yamuna and instructed environment secretary to take steps through Delhi Pollution Control Committee to ensure that pollutants, especially from industries, are not allowed to flow into the Yamuna.

Odisha to link urban bodies through WAN

Odisha government has decided to facilitate the Odisha State Wide Area Network to ensure intra-departmental online connectivity in the state.

MS to setup data centers in India

To improve e-governance services, Microsoft will offer commercial cloud services—Azure and Office 365 from local data centers in India in three cities by end of 2015.

Five smart cities in Telangana

Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has taken up a project of developing five smart cities including Hyderabad, Warangal, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Khammam.

UN video addresses urban issue UN-Habitat recently launched ‘Paper City’, a stop-motion video animation portraying today’s urban challenges.

Stamps on liver: Union Minister for Communications & Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad releasing the postal stamp on “Liver Transplant”

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November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

NIRD adopts 100 villages for solar lighting

HYDERABAD: To meet the needs of lighting homes and street lighting in the rural pocket, the National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD) has adopted 100 villages in the country and projected them as models of development and solar power. According to its Director General M V Rao, the Rural Technology Park (RTP) at NIRD is advocating the use of solar power in every house and diffuses the pressure on the electric grid by an investment of Rs 27,000 on the project. “This could be an answer to domestic power cuts and can be a solution to enjoy uninterrupted power supply,” Rao said.

French help to upgrade infrastructure SHIMLA: The state of Himachal Pradesh has pinned high hope plans to seek help from France in setting up smart cities, introducing integrated transport system and in managing its solid waste and water resources. The French embassy in India has already agreed to fund the feasibility study for the integrated transport system in urban areas of the state. A technical team last year had termed the project feasible. Urban development minister Sudhir Sharma said that the state government is keen to introduce rapid transport system in urban areas to decongest the towns where traffic congestion has become a cause of concern.

Japanese wins Nobel prize for LED innovation LONDON: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decided to award the most coveted Nobel prize to three Japanese scientists — Isamu Akasaki from Meijo University, Hiroshi Amano from the Nagoya University, Japan and Shuji Nakamura from the University of California “for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources.” The laureates were rewarded for having invented a new energy-efficient and environment-friendly light source — the blue light-emitting diode (LED). Now, more efficient, cheaper and smarter lamps are developed as Blue LEDs that consume less energy than white LEDs.

NEWSCAN

Learn waste management from Norway, Finland: President In view of the cleanliness drive in the country, it is only imperative for the policy makers to take lessons from countries whose waste management practices are followed optimally Team Urban Update

NEW DELHI: Expressing satisfaction at the outcome of his visit to Norway and Finland, President Pranab Mukherjee said that India can gain from the two countries’ expertise for making areas such as clean technology and waste management viable in the country.

“I am satisfied that during this visit and in the course of my interactions with the Norwegian and Finnish leadership, we made progress in a number of areas,” he said.

Noting Norway and Finland were both highly developed countries, having resources, technological advancements, innovation capabilities and expertise in sectors key for India, he said: “They have expertise in specialized areas like clean technologies, renewable energy, bio-technology, waste management as also education, research, skill development and innovation.

“India can cooperate successfully with them keeping in mind the objective of sustainable development,” he said.

During his visit to Norway, six governmental agreements were signed for cooperation in the fields of earth sciences, culture, and scientific research. In Finland, four agreements were signed for collaboration and research in renewable energy, biotechnology, civil nuclear research and meteorological issues.

The president said that he briefed the Norwegian and the Finnish

leadership about India’s efforts for full membership of the four export control regimes and its impeccable record on non-proliferation.

“We sought their continued support in our endeavour for reforms in the UN Security Council and for India’s candidature’s for a permanent seat in the expanded UN Security Council,” he said.

The statement said that both countries expressed support for India getting the membership.

Mukherjee had extensive discussions on bilateral, multilateral and global issues with the Finnish leadership.

“We exchanged views on issues like the situation in Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan and the BRICs bank. We also discussed the need to cooperate against terrorism, as it knows no borders,” Mukherjee said.

He said the visit provided an opportunity to discuss India’s cooperation in the Arctic and glacial research in both Norway and Finland.

Mukherjee said he briefed the leadership in Norway and Finland about India’s economic situation as well as about recent policy initiatives such as the ‘Make in India’ campaign.

He said India was an attractive investment destination for both the countries, including by the Norwegian sovereign Global Pension Fund.

“Both Norway and Finland recognized that there was great potential to enhance our economic engagements. They both importantly, conveyed that they are looking beyond Europe in this regard,” the president said.

The Finnish leadership mentioned that their companies were keenly pursuing opportunities to invest in India and the Norwegian side expressed their keenness for the conclusion of negotiations of European Free Trade Agreement and informed that they had decided to open consulate general office in Mumbai, added the statement. www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

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COVER STORY

Cities of

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November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

COVER STORY

Tomorrow Indian cities, propelled by the plethora of technological developments and government’s intent of making cities smart, are on the cusp of taking a giant leap towards digital governance. Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, sensor-enabled civic administration, superfast 5G technology dominating communication and connected cities may evoke thoughts of buzzing servers in dark wired rooms at present. But these innovations, if implemented effectively, are expected to improve our day-to-day lives in the times to come Abhishek Pandey, Principal Correspondent

C

ities in India seem to be brimming over with population.

Indian cities are expected to add 440 million more people to its cities by 2050 and the country has to be ready with right set of technology to build better cities. The technology should not only accommodate the growing population but also provide them ease of living convenient life in a comfortable ambience.

Technology has improved every aspect of human lives and it can be an enabler to improve urban life too. Effective implementation of technological innovation can address the challenges cities are facing. Cities are adopting technologies across the world to make life more convenient, cosier and comfortable. Several urban innovations using technology like sensors, big data management, cloud computing, telecommunication, and the Internet have revolutionised the way citizens live, work and play in technology enabled cities or say Digital Cities. Among them, internet is the most important one that links other urban technology. These technological advancements have

improved public service delivery system considerably and expedited the governance response in many ways.

In India, before adapting any technology, it is imperative to understand what citizens need in their future cities. And, the government, first of all, has to put in place systems that support those future needs in a sustainable and integrated way. Not only this, the country need to work on basic infrastructure for such cities and

“

Ravi Chauhan Managing Director SAP India

The city app designed

by SAP focuses on the citizen’s wishes, interests, and needs. They can experience the new services through a city app on their Smartphone

“

capacity building of urban dwellers; especially for the disadvantaged section to ensure the benefits of living in digital cities are not limited to a certain section of society with access to fast internet, high end smart phones and computers.

Big data and Internet of Things

Every citizen in technology enabled city, even in the ones which have adopted basic technological advancements, contribute to Big Data that are invariably tagged to space and time. Such data is largely being streamed from sensors, Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking, information gathering from satellites and data filtration from the internet.

Much of this data in technology advanced cities are collected automatically through sensors and other technological tools. And, it mainly represents what happens where and when in cities.

The Big Data helps authorities to understand how a city functions and in turns enable them to manage the cities better. Many cities worldwide using the big data collected from different sources to implement projects, as www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

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COVER STORY

“

Karuna Gopal President of Foundation for Futuristic Cities

Digital cities value and respect data. Urban Informatics will be the backbone of such cities. Life will be predictable and there will be a better sense of control. A smart city is nothing but a city that is efficient, livable and sustainable

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per the specific requirements of their cities, to improve lives of citizens.

Karuna Gopal, President of Foundation for Futuristic Cities, told Urban Update: “Digital cities value and respect data. Urban Informatics will be the backbone of such cities.

Life will be predictable and there will be a better sense of control.”

Gopal added that a smart city is nothing but a city that is efficient, livable and sustainable. To achieve this, India is planning all the required components. The nation is talking about Intelligent Transportation, Smart Grids, Control and Command centers like those in Rio de Janeiro and Barcelona.

Indian cities like Surat, Delhi have already command centers. Many other cities are planning them. These centers deal with “real time data” that is captured by satellites for weather, cameras for crime and traffic violation, etc. Cities in the developed countries are already utilising big data sets—like traffic statistics, energy consumption rates and GPS mapping—to launch projects to ease urban life. It is quite interesting to see how cities are using big data to improve liveability index of cities.

In Seattle, the local government in collaboration with Microsoft and 18

November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

Accenture launched a pilot project for reducing energy usage in a few pockets of the city. The project uses Microsoft’s Azure cloud to collect and analyse data sets collected from four downtown buildings’ management systems.

The analysis based on data collected help authorities to find out where energy can be used less, or not at all. Similarly, other technology tools are being used in digital cities to save water, treat waste effectively, manage traffic, improve surveillance, and improve other aspects of services a city renders.

Gopal believes that such technology can help Indian cities too provided that the country build a system that provides ubiquitous high speed internet connectivity.

Internet of Things (IoT) could seem a far-out future at present for Indian cities which do not have infrastructure and fast broadband connectivity to support it. IoT enables human to object, and object to object real time communication through Internet. It will contribute a great deal to big data and will help in better city management and improvement in service delivery mechanism. For this, the government need to make available the ubiquitous internet connectivity, low-cost sensors, and microelectronics that allow almost anything to be connected to the Internet.

One of the enablers of IoT applications could be smart phones that have ability to optically scan bar codes or RFID tags.

Internet of Things involves three distinct stages. In the first stage, the sensors collect data (including identification and addressing the sensor/device), and in the second stage, an application which collects and analyses this data for further consolidation.

And, in final stage, decision making and the transmission of data to the decision-making server will be done.

Analytical engines and Big data may be used for the decision making process.

Hi-tech mobility

Use of digital technology in cities has the potential to make urban mobility more convenient, safer and greener. In many European countries, an emerging technology eCall— a cooperative ITS service that automatically summons emergency assistance if there is a severe vehicle crash and creates a voice/audio link— is being used by passengers and rescue authorities. Trials of the service are underway in several countries coordinated through the European HeERO project.

According to the HeERO project, the e-call service sends an immediate alert in the event of an accident with the exact location of the crash site to rescue and traffic authorities. It cuts emergency services’ response time by 50 percent thereby giving accident victims better recovery prospects.

Arriving at the accident scene sooner will also allow faster clearance of crash sites, thus reducing the risk of secondary accidents, decreasing congestion times, cutting fuel waste and lowering CO2 emissions.

Another project, SpotHero offers the US cities a solution to parking problem. Some of the USA cities including New York, Chicago and Washington DC are using SpotHero

“

Parag Harolikar Director & Global head M2M Business Services, Tech Mahindra

One of the main components of digital cities are hi-tech transport infrastructure improvements such as automated and coordinated traffic lights, parking infrastructure, and automated local public transit information systems

“

COVER STORY

Internet of Things Internet of Things will connect cars, trains, cattles, alarm clocks, mobile phones, coffee makers, lighting and survillance system at homes, shops and offices, personal appliances, medical devices, wearable devices, parking spaces, artificial limbs, jet engines, kitchen appliances, and anything that has ‘on’ and ‘off’ switch. IoT can enable communication with any object under the sun provided that it is embedded with sensors.

IN 2020 25 Million

60 Million

Apps to support IoT

Cars to be equipped with connectivity technologies

212 Billion

30 Billion

Sensor enabled objects

15 Billion USD Government expect to have IoT industry worth USD 15 Billion in India

40 Trillion GB Data across the Internet of Things

Sensor enabled objects connected to networks

26-50 BILLION Internet connected devices in the world

USD 1.9 Trillion Economic Value of Internet of Things (IoT) Industry will be USD 1.9 Trillion by 2020

Source: Gartner Inc., Oracle, DeITy, FOW

www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

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COVER STORY

“

Ambrish Bakaya Vice President-Corporate Affairs, HP India

eHealth Centers leverage cloud-based IT and datasharing systems aims to deliver 21st century healthcare services to people in resource-poor locations in India. By utilising HP’s innovative solutions, our aim is to improve health services in 14 locations in the country. solutions to strengthen the basic infrastructure in cities

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app, available for iOS and Android devices, to track vacant parking spots.

The app provides availability in real time. Users just need to type in an area and they are directed to a listing of available parking places. Similarly, an IBM team with partnership with the city of Lyon, France built a system that helps traffic operators reduce

congestion on the road. The system is called ‘Decision Support System Optimizer (DSSO)’. It uses real-time traffic reports to detect congestions. If traffic managers observe that a traffic jam could occur then they fine-tune traffic signals accordingly to keep the flow of vehicles smooth.

A Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) enabled service linked with smart phone apps and Bluetooth has made the road crossing for the blind and the disabled people. The system that is in operation in Edinburg tells the disabled persons when a signalised crossing approaches. They hear an audible signal which reminds them to use a handheld device such as a trigger fob or a smart phone to request to cross. Confirmation can be sent directly from the traffic signal or to the smart phone and earpiece.

Parag Harolikar, Director & Global head M2M Business Services, Tech Mahindra, told Urban Update that one of the main components of digital cities are hi-tech transport infrastructure improvements such as automated and coordinated traffic lights, parking infrastructure, and automated local public transit information systems.

He further says public transportation can be improved in

Technology making life safer on roads

European HeERO project

20 November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

digital cities by making available the precise maps and timings for the modes of transport in cities. In an ideal digital city, precise timings are published and available along with the maps on mobile devices. Bus stop, station location are marked as well as the location of the next bus or train is indicated in real time. The bus stop has all the electronic signage to indicate the time of arrival of the next bus, its terminal stop, and seat availability. If such information is available, it is so easy to plan a onetime trip across town or a regular commute to work as well.

A step to easy governance

Digital governance is in practice in almost all the shining cities. It is the foundation of cost effective efficient governance. Indian cities are in dire need of out-of-the-ordinary urban innovation to tackle urban challenges and seeing the success of digital governance initiatives, it seems to be a remedy to various urban problems.

Many technology providers globally are working on to provide solutions to cities for improving urban life. City managers and government have also reaching out to citizens to find out solutions for the urban problems. New York City this year came out with an idea to reach people and find solution for the problems the city is grappling with. The local city government initiated a programme called BigApp and asked citizens to come out with their ideas and implementation plan.

The programme was a success and many community groups and experts suggested solutions to deal with different problems.

In this regard, SAP India has come out with a mobile based solution to solve civic amenities issues.

Ravi Chauhan, Managing Director, SAP told Urban Update: “The city app designed by SAP focuses on the citizen’s wishes, interests, and needs. They can experience the new services through a city app on their Smartphone. Until now, citizens have invariably seen administrative procedures as laborious and time

COVER STORY consuming. The goal of the city app is to ease communication between the citizens and public administration and to make it more efficient for both parties.” He added that they have been working with city councils, municipalities, urban administration agencies across the globe in helping them achieve these objectives. We have a lot of solutions for smart cities.

We have done many deployments both locally and globally.

Recently, SAP announced how Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) implemented solutions from the company to automate and centralise public service offerings.

The service is available in Hindi and helps the BMC to manage and streamline day-to-day functions, including issuing marriage certificates, birth and death registrations, city

infrastructure development and open space management, including roads, parking, traffic signals, community halls and schools. The solution also streamline permits, health services, water supply, lake conservation and tax collection, among other services.

Chauhan explained that Bhopal’s project is a milestone for the SAP Urban Matters program, premised on the idea that improving livability, simplifying government and nurturing local economies are key foundations for a city’s long-term success. In the healthcare sector, Hewlett Packard India is providing healthcare to 14 locations in the country by utilising HP’s innovative technologies and solutions.

Ambrish Bakaya, Vice PresidentCorporate Affairs, HP India, said that e-Health Centers leverage cloud-

Big Data for better liveability

A sample urban management formula based on Big Data in a Digital City ♦♦ Traffic systems which use data from sensors to proactively reroute traffic to avoid congestion and maximise road utilisation. ♦♦ Smart grid technology which enables end users to be more efficient with their energy uses, and allows utility companies to proactively identify and repair energy or water leakage. ♦♦ Public safety and security systems that measure realtime people movement that can be used to alert police or transport networks. ♦♦ Advanced health solutions which remotely monitor chronically ill patients so they can remain longer at home and reduce the pressure on resource-constraint public hospitals. ♦♦ Smart learning solutions such as virtual classrooms and new learning environments that improve student outcomes, increase efficiency, enhance safety and security. ♦♦ Most of the services developed to date are focused on smart energy/environmental and transport projects as Municipal governments are using ICT as an enabler to use energy more efficiently both to reduce their costs and to improve the environment both directly through lower pollution and indirectly through lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Source: Futuristic Cities

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Divya Sharma Senior Researcher, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)

We have done vulnerability mapping of coastal cities by collecting meteorological data for making cities climate resilience. Effective use of technology can play a significant role in improving disaster management mechanism in cities during a natural calamity

“

based IT and data-sharing systems aims to deliver 21st century healthcare services and medical diagnostics to people in remote and resource-poor locations in India.

Bakaya added that the government should rope in technology providers and other stakeholders for improving urban infrastructure.

Dr Divya Sharma, a senior researcher at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) told Urban Update: In the times, technology has entered in every aspects of life. It can be used to strengthen cities in fighting with climate change impacts.”

She added that TERI in collaboration with USAID has done vulnerability mapping of coastal cities by collecting meteorological data that can help in making cities climate resilience. Effective use of technology can play a significant role in improving disaster management mechanism in cities during a natural calamity.

Direct your queries to

abhishek@urbanupdate.in

www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

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COVER STORY

Turning smart with apps Moving from an outmoded and fragmented administrative structure and shedding their clerical skins, Urban Local Bodies are transforming themselves into an efficient service provider through e-services Prathiba Raju, Associate Editor

G

one are the days when you had to visit a municipal office and spend hours in queues to deposit property taxes or complaint for poor civic amenities in your locality. Digitisation of civic services has made life easier than ever before. Municipalities across the country are exploring new e-services to simplify governance.

As per United Nations E-Government Survey 2014, India was ranked 118 out of 193 countries in E-government Development Index (EDDI). e-governance is a big challenge to bring services to all citizens in terms of quality and accessibility.

“Nearly 330 million Indians will be using the internet in 2015, which makes the country the second largest connected population in the world.

It is primarily used as a medium for social networking and entertainment in India, but its potential in education, healthcare, employability and access to government services remains untapped,” a McKinsey report stated.

For the past two decades, though our country has widely acknowledged the use of e-governance in the public sector, still it has not been implemented in basic necessities like health, education, employment and civic services. With a proper enactment of e-governance, the civic agencies can make lives better in crowded urban spaces.

Digitisation makes life easy

Not all municipal corporations can battle with copious data like birth 22 November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

“

Mukesh Kanaskar Director-International, AIILSG

e-participation is as important for the smart cities as e-governance, especially from the ‘inclusion’ perspective considering the digital divide in urban India

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and death certificates, property tax assessment and collection, building permission plan, new water connection among others. The data

management is crucial for the day to day life. To manage such services better, many civic agencies have built in their own digital services.

For example, Nagpur has door-todoor collection of taxes, where the tax collectors fill in the details of the residence in tablets with internet connectivity, collect taxes, issue receipts. While the city of Surat uses a mobile application either for any corporation-related requirement.

Rajkot city corporation provides 24x7 service through kiosks and the internet —interactive voice response system.

Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has rendered prime success in delivering e-services. The civic body created e-platforms covering 28 departments. The corporation has come out with new software modules digitising the birth and death

Major apps in most of the ULBs ♦♦ Tax mapping – Mapping various municipal taxes like property tax levied on various assesses. It helps in instant collections and boost revenues ♦♦ Urban Poor mapping – Mapping the Economically Weaker Section (EWS). So the services earmarked for them reach them ♦♦ Civic Infrastructure mapping - Details of municipal infrastructure like roads, solid waste management, streetlight, and building. It helps the city town planners ♦♦ Assets mapping - Details of the assets helps in providing better services to the citizens

COVER STORY registration, building plan. The civic agency has automated system were complaints on water supply sewage, road, street lights can be done online.

Gujarat is one of the first states to have a state-wide network which has hugely facilitated and transferred governance through technological access.

Large municipal corporations in Madhya Pradesh have introduced an automated building plan approval system which has reduced the 3060 day requirement up to 20 days.

Likewise, Hyderabad civic agencies’ ‘mee seva centre’ and Bangalore’s IT initiative is a wide variety of public services through 92 service centre and are a hit among the citizens.

Streamline e-services across ULBs

As per experts, there are a number of applications and e-services developed by urban local bodies to provide better citizen services. But at times the IT applications become a challenge in integrating the processes across departments. This environment presents a challenge for business users to have a quick availability of performance measures.

“The civic agencies need to adapt processes quickly using existing infrastructure and services. For example, we need to use a uniform, standardised reporting format across

“

Ajay Aggarwal Director PRUDA

Various initiatives are taken by state government on e-services. But we need to have a regularised survey pattern and a national level centralised data. The UD and HUPA ministry are working on it

“

all agencies and all data types, and provides a single point of access for all users. For example, the data’s for groups of related services such as infrastructure, education, or public safety can be the same various big, medium and small cities. This will increase accountability by making it easier to monitor agency performance for the most important measures,” a DeitY official told Urban Update.

As per experts, e-governance can function efficiently when civic authorities work closely together and cooperate on data sharing.

McKinsey reports Nearly 330 million Indians will be using the internet in 2015, which makes the country the second largest connected population in the world. It is primarily used as a medium for social networking and entertainment in India, but its potential in education, healthcare, employability and access to government services remains untapped

Survey on slum dwellers The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) and Ministry of Housing and Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) are trying to come out with a digitised single format survey particularly for slum dwellers and street vendors

“We are yet to reach that point all the government portals team up with each other and share the existing infrastructure. Each state can also share various resources, information sources. A centralised database sharing can be done,” the official said.

The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) and Ministry of Housing and Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) are trying to come out with a digitised single format survey particularly for slum dwellers and street vendors.

“Various initiatives are taken by state government on e-services.

But we need to have a regularised survey pattern and a national level centralised data. The UD and HUPA ministry are working on it. Soon there will be a nationwide survey programme in a single format,” Ajay Aggarwal, Director, Planning and Resources for Urban Development Affairs (PRUDA) told Urban Update.

The survey will be similar like the one done in Ahmedabad, where the slum profile of 33 municipalities will be taken. Similarly a pan India survey shall also be on roll. This survey will begin in certain identified metropolis on pilot basis and then it will be done in other cities. Apart from this a separate survey will be done on street vendors beginning it with in Rajasthan.

Mukesh Kanaskar, DirectorInternational, AIILSG informs that as the government is vouching to create 100 smart cities, the digitisation should bridge the gap between the urban dwellers and civic bodies. A holistic approach is necessary in rationalising the existing systems and to sustain a strong smart city ecosystem. “e-participation is as important for the smart cities as e-governance, especially from the ‘inclusion’ perspective considering the digital divide in urban India. Bridging this digital divide, vis-à-vis the under-privileged sections such as slum-dwellers having a highly impoverished access to e-governance should be a key priority for smart cities,” he added. www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

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COVER STORY

Apps make life easy!

J

ust with a fingertip one can register any civic complaints be it on overflowing drainage, erratic water supply, potholes on roads, faulty streetlights or parking problem. All one needs is a smart phone.

Association of Municipalities and Development Authorities (AMDA), the apex organisation of municipal bodies developed a standard mobile application for all the civic agencies.

Citizens would be able to avail a variety of services through the app on their smart phones.

“These apps can be used for 24 November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

paying taxes, getting birth and death certificates, and lodging complaints and even to get weather alerts. All civic bodies can adopt the technologybased support quickly and at low cost,” Jaideep Kharb, Assistant Director, AMDA told Urban Update.

The mobile app of AMDA has adapted the model of Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) app, which is used by locals and even people living in 15 other countries to pay taxes.

As per Naini Jayaseelan, AMDA chairperson, the Surat Corporation was the first to develop a mobile app that was well received by the local citizens.

“It is similar to the SMC app, but we have added various other innovative features like each municipalities varies and they can customise their requirements accordingly in this app,” she said.She added that the basic app will be available at a very reasonable price to the municipal bodies so that they don’t need to spend huge amount to start mobile based governance.

“The applications can be used only by smart phone users. Within month of the launch we would try to develop the applications as it can be used in any mobile. If we can address at least 40 complaints, there will be huge improvement,” Kharb said.

COVER STORY

PROOF for good governance Public Record of Operations and Finance (PROOF) is Janaagraha’s public disclosure and accountability initiative. It has ensured better financial transparency in Urban Local Bodies (ULB) through the city’s financial accounts from a single entry model to a fully digitised, fund based, double entry accounting system. As a result of the newly improved aggregation of data, dissemination of accurate and comprehensive information could be easily disclosed Abhishek Pandey, Principal Correspondent

I

ndian government spends thousands of crores on development projects, and management of cities. The spending is, of course, apart from expenditure on various infrastructure projects announced under different schemes and budget of local bodies. In the times of highly competitive world, people are becoming more aware and holding the government accountable to know where the money of public exchequer is going. The universal desire to monitor finances is an effort that is directly related with the welfare of the people.

Understanding the need of bringing transparency in governance, PROOF by Janaagraha, an NGO began working with governments on performance reporting and financial accountability of urban service providers. It also enabled citizens to catalyse citizen engagement on city budgets. The project was implemented first in Bangalore and later in other cities of Karnataka but it is still to see the light of day in other corporations in different states.

“One of our significant goals in PROOF is to get city governments to achieve reporting of financial and performance data of their operations within a standardised framework. PROOF envisages a National Performance Reporting Framework for ULBs, which will be standardised across India and result in timely disclosures of financial and performance data, facilitating comparability across civic agencies

and resulting in greater accountability, better service delivery,” Srikanth Viswanathan, Coordinator (Advocacy, Research and Capacity Building) of Janaagraha told Urban Update.

Methodology

In 2002, a coalition of community service organisations began campaigning for the quarterly public disclosure of Bangalore city corporation’s financial records.

Campaigners quickly became aware that the demand for transparency would not be possible without the accurate supply of records.

The adaptation of technology in municipal bodies of Karnataka gave an impetus to the movement for transparency. With growing use of technology is an enabler to improve aggregation of data. And,

accountability PROOF envisages a National Performance Reporting Framework for Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) which will be standardised across ULBs in India and result in timely disclosures of financial and performance data, facilitating comparability across ULBs and resulting in greater accountability, better service delivery

it further enables the corporations to disseminate accurate and comprehensive information. Under PROOF, the researchers collect the information available online and then verify through secondary sources and field research.

Meanwhile, several initiatives have been undertaken in the last decade by the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) and the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) on issues of accountability and disclosures by ULBs of which the Service Level Benchmarking initiative and the Public Disclosure Law were spearheaded by PROOF.

Better transparency

Accountability and reporting by ULBs is becoming greater significance seeing the large amounts of funds flowing to them to meet infrastructure and service demands under different new initiatives of the newly formed government that has planned to build new cities and improve infrastructure in existing cities.Currently, PROOF is encompassed at the policy level in the disclosure law of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM). Its second major accomplishment has been the generation of standardised service level benchmarks. This benchmarking framework has been recommended by the 13th Finance Commission to municipal corporations across the country. Using technological innovation with PROOF framework, the functioning of ULBs across India can become more transparent. www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

25

COVER STORY

Suvidha is the new comfort Citizens enjoy and require the necessary comfort and the amenities for smooth functioning in their day-to-day lives. Even as the new government has asserted its stand on ‘Digital India’, many local bodies have pulled up their socks to help people acquire suitable benefits of digitisation Jessy Iype, Desk Editor & Reporter

e

-Suvidha is a suite of e-services offered by the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) to its citizens. The aim is to to provide the benefits of advances in technology to every citizen living in the limits of the PCMC; by identifying, harnessing and employing state-ofthe-art systems in city administration. e-Services under the e-Suvidha initiative cover all functioning of the civic agency.

Neeta Hemant Nikam, a resident of Dattawadi in Akurdi area, called the PCMC new helpline on December 21, 2013, to report a missing drain cover and overflowing sewage on the street near Adarsh Mitra Mandal in her locality. She feared the open drains might prove a death trap for unsuspecting passers-by and drivers on the street, especially in the dark.

As soon as her call was recorded and complaint registered, a team of civic officers from the concerned ‘A’ Ward was at the site for spot inspection.

Within six hours the repair work was done, and adequate safety measures put in place until a new cover was fixed on the drain on December 26.

The municipal administration for the twin industrial township of Pimpri-Chinchwad launched the SARATHI helpline in August 2013, to help citizens collect information on various civic services, rules and regulations, and to register their complaints online.

Within two months of its launch, calls to the helpline number (8888006666) started pouring in – nearly 10,000 calls were received and

26 November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

“

Uday Tekale PCMC additional commissioner

People prefer to call the helpline instead of locating the concerned officer at the PCMC office. As a result, the number of visitors to the PCMC main building has come down to an average of 300 per day from 800 three months ago

“

more than 25,000 hits registered on the helpline’s website, which meant an average of 150 calls and 400 hits per day from the 19 lakh residents of the twin cities, the adjacent planned township of Pradhikaran which is administered by the Pimpri Chinchwad New Township Development Area (PCNTDA), and the new industrial area of Chakan.

System for Assisting Residents and Tourists through Helpline Information (SARATHI), a brainchild of former PCMC municipal commissioner Shrikar Pardeshi, was instituted to provide information and services to citizens and bring speed and uniformity to the functioning and response of the municipal corporation’s ward offices.

PCMC additional commissioner Uday Tekale, who heads the project, said: “The civic chief initiated the

project after observing that the four ward offices were not functioning in tandem. With SARATHI we have successfully brought uniformity to the functioning of the civic administration.”

Even before SARATHI commenced, the PCMC’s e-governance initiative had ensured that all information related to water, education, health, drainage, street lighting, civic taxes, building activities, disaster management and the 28 sectors under the municipal corporation, was uploaded on the website.

“The call centre services are based on the website and divided into two sections, e-Suvidha and the helpline,” added Tekale.

The second phase, launched in November with services extended to the Zilla Parishad (ZP), Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) and Pradhikaran.

The e-governance initiative is an efficient service for information and grievance redressal of citizens. The ‘Dissemination of Information’ page on the website features as many as 589 FAQs related to 39 different departments. Each new query that is not listed in FAQs is taken up, addressed and then added to the page. The municipal commissioner reviews the functioning of SARATHI every Tuesday, followed by a review meeting with senior officers.

Citizens can register their complaints online, or through text messages or simply make a call to the designated number. Each one gets a token number and is forwarded to the concerned department heads for

COVER STORY action. Complaints related to birth and death registration, water supply, non-functioning street lamps, missing drainage covers or overflowing

garbage, dead animals, cleaning of roads, are solved immediately.

“People prefer to call the helpline instead of locating the concerned

AVAILABLE ONLINE ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦

Income Department Water & Sewerage Solid Waste Management Town Planning & Development Public Hospitals Health Program Management Sports Facilities Public Schools Basic Services for Urban Poor Citizens Facility Centres Information Portal & Kiosks Income Department Services

Income Department ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦

Octroi Property Tax Water Tax Building Plan Approval Rent from Land & Estates Income from PPP & BOT projects Other Incomes

Services for Public Works ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦

Civil Works Roads, Bridges, Public Buildings Water & Sewerage Works Pipelines, Sewerage Treatment Plants Electrical Works Electrification of Highways, Streets & Public Buildings Electrification of Pumping Stations and STPs

Support Establishment ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦

Leadership, Strategy & Planning Personnel & Administration Audit Stores & Inventory Management Information Technology Document, File & Content Management Systems Integration & Software Development

officer at the PCMC office. As a result, the number of visitors to the PCMC main building has come down to an average of 300 per day from 800 three months ago. Now officers get more time to concentrate on the job and other important tasks,” Tekale said.

The call centre now logs 250 calls per day; 70 percent of them seeking information while 30 percent are civic complaints. However, the majority of the calls are made by middle class and upper-middle class residents, say call centre employees.

They are a team of seven working in two shifts between 7 am to 10 pm under the supervision of two senior civic officers. Each information query is attended to right away, while the complaints are registered (typed online), voice-recorded and forwarded to the concerned department head for action.

After fixing the problem the civic officials call the complainants. A flowchart of each call is maintained and monitored online by the senior officers. Pardeshi’s idea of introducing a negative marking or negative point system is said to be the reason why the concerned departments and their heads act so promptly.

If an officer takes more than the stipulated time period to fix problems, he accumulates ‘penal points’ and is liable to get memos and show cause notices and, in the worst case, invite adverse remarks on the service register.

By early-January 2014, SARATHI had received 7,325 complaints, of which 6,741 have been addressed while 584 are being redressed. This means a success rate of 92percent.

Going a step further, the services will now be introduced in Hindi and English. “We are also moving towards m-governance and have introduced an Android application for users so that they can use the services while on the move,” Tekale said.

Direct your queries to

jessy@urbanupdate.in

www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

27

ONE ON ONE

Blending e-services, governance Giving wings to the Digital India initiative, via making governance collaborative, participative and available in real time, empowering citizens with universal accessibility to e-services through an integrated service delivery mechanism, is a key aspect Team Urban Update

D

eitY is a key enabler of Digital India initiative in the country. The initiative by the Government is a programme aimed at transforming India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. The programme

Dr Rajendra Kumar Joint Secretary Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY)

28 November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

is being implemented by the entire government with DeitY as the coordinator.

The vision of Digital India is centred on three key areas, namely Digital Infrastructure as a Utility to Every Citizen, Governance & Services on Demand, and Digital Empowerment of Citizens. Sharing his experiences about the various aspects of the Mobile Seva initiative by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Dr Rajendra Kumar, Joint Secretary (DeitY) told Urban Update how it is an integral part in shaping up the various e-governance initiatives in the country.

The central government is giving importance to Digital India, how is DeitY’s M-seva complimenting it?

One of the Digital India programme’s main thrust areas is e-governance.

The mobile platform substantially enhances the reach and access to e-governance services in the country through delivery of electronic services through mobile phones and tablets. This is because mobile phone penetration in the country is much higher when compared to access to computers and internet, especially in rural areas.

Mobile Seva is a national platform that currently integrates over 1340 government departments across the country at national, state and local levels. In three years of its implementation, we have delivered over 160 crore SMS based transactions

to the citizens. Through SMS, even a basic feature phone can be used to obtain government services. Mobile Seva also provides a Mobile AppStore with over 310 live and fully integrated mobile apps which people can download and use to obtain a wide range of government services.

USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) and IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System) based service are also being provided through this platform. This is the only national mobile platform that offers all possible mobile based channels such as SMS, USSD, IVRS and mobile apps and a mobile payment gateway through a single integrated platform to all government departments and agencies in the country for delivering their electronic services to the people.

What are the major components of mobile apps developed by DeitY. Could you please provide us an overview?

Mobile apps have helped the government departments tremendously in increasing the reach and access to their services, particularly for those living in rural areas.

A person having a mobile phone can obtain various services directly through his phone anytime from anywhere without having to visit a government office. We had started this initiative as a pilot in 2011 and in last three years, we have built and expanded this platform through

ONE ON ONE our implementing agency, Centre for Development for Advanced Computing (CDAC), which is a DeitY organization. It’s a cloud based platform and built on open standards.

How do the mobile based services work?

Any government department or an Urban Local Body (ULB) should have a database of mobile numbers of their service seekers. With this database, they can start sending the notifications on the mobile phone using this platform almost immediately. With a backend application, a government department can offer more

sophisticated and advanced services based on each stage of processing of the applications from citizens. For example, a government department can send a notification to the applicant that his/her application has been received for a particular service or it has been processed. Departments can also provide mobile apps for the people to obtain complete end-to-end services through mobile phones.

How does Meghraj, the cloud platform for the entire government, work?

Meghraj, the cloud computing platform, aims at playing a major role

efficient Governance

Mobiles can become the most common access devices for government services provided through the national e-Governance exchange middleware comprising National e-Governance Services Delivery Gateway (NSDG), State e-Governance Services Delivery Gateway (SSDG) and various domain gateways, e.g. Passport Gateway, MCA21 Gateway.

A separate infrastructure for Mobile Seva is required as: ♦♦ Seamless integration with backend department needs to be ensured through existing NSDG/SSDG eGov exchange infrastructure ♦♦ Common interface needs to be provided for various mobile based services, e.g., Short Message Service (SMS), USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data), IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System), CBS (Cell Broadcasting Service), LBS (Location Based Services), mobile applications, etc ♦♦ There is a need to generate as well as render the contents for delivering services on the mobile platform as mobile devices present a constrained environment.

in providing governance and services on demand to the citizens. It provided three main cloud based services to the government departments: Infrastructure as a Services (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). The aim is to utilise the current infrastructure more efficiently and drastically reduce the time that departments spend in procurement of hardware. Cloud platform is proposed to be used to benefit citizens in a number of ways.

For example, all government documents and citizen entitlements shall be made available on the cloud to ensure easy and anytime anywhere access. Also, portability of all entitlements for individuals would be ensured through the cloud platform.

Any particular e-service initiative taken for the urban dwellers?

When it comes to e-services in urban areas, the concerned municipal body needs to take the initiative to provide these services to the residents. A municipal body can significantly improve its services to the residents using the mobile platform. For example, the municipality may be sending tax demands or notices through a printed letter that might reach the person after several days.

Using the mobile platform, the same demand or notice can be delivered almost instantaneously to the person through SMS. SMS based notifications can be used in addition to the physical delivery of printed notices. SMSs can also be sent for payment of taxes and fees. For example, when a person pays his/her municipal water tax, he/ she will get a notification through mobile phones regarding receipt of the payment.

Many civic agencies are doing this.

Mobile apps can also be used for allowing people to make payments of taxes and fees through mobile phones.

We have developed a mobile app that can be used by a civic body to allow people to make such payments. The app allows a person to view his/her taxes and fees and allows him/her to make payments. www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

29

ONE ON ONE PROFILE

I’m CPO not CM

Positions held in BJP ♦♦

Devendra Fadnavis, 44, who became the second youngest Chief Minister of Maharashtra, asserts that he will see his position as a Chief Political Officer (CPO) rather as a CM

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well-known face within Maharashtra, Fadnavis has been the youngest corporator of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation at the age of 27 in 1997.

Active in civic administration, he played a significant role in signing an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh to build a dam on Kanhan river at Jamghat in Madhya Pradesh.

Describing that his position is more like a CPO than a CM, Fadnavis, on the day of swearing-in posted on a social networking site: “Politics to me is an instrument to bring socioeconomic change in the lives of people.” He has 950,139 followers on Facebook and nearly 40,000 followers on Twitter.

Fadnavis, a law graduate from Nagpur University and a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from Germany started his political career as a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad

30 November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

(ABVP). Born in a Brahmin family of social activists associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). His father Gangadharrao Fadnavis was a BJP member of the state legislative council.

As a proof to showcase that he is in the footsteps of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, Fadnavis informed that soon Mumbai city would get a CEO, an officer equal to the rank of the additional chief secretary, just below the chief secretary.

The other significant decisions

by Fadnavis after he assumed into office was that the Chhatrapati

“

♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦

♦♦

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Politics to me is an instrument to bring socio-economic change in the lives of people

Devendra Fadnavis Chief Minister of Maharashtra

♦♦

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President, BJP Maharashtra (2013) General Secretary, BJP Maharashtra Pradesh (2010) National Vice President, Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha (2001) State Vice President, Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha (1994) Nagpur City President, Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha (1992) Office Bearer, Nagpur (West) BJP (1990) Ward President, BJYM (1989) Legislative Experience Member, Maharashtra Legislative Assembly - Four consecutive terms, since 1999 Member, Nagpur Municipal Corporation - For two consecutive terms, during 1992 to 2001 Mayor, City of Nagpur - twice Mayor in Council - First to hold this position and was re-elected

Shivaj memorial in the Arabian Sea would get the Centre’s environmental clearance within a week. He also affirmed that the Right to Services Bill would be placed in the legislature either during the winter session or in March.

www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

30

VIEW POINT

Sanitation for all Building toilets for every household would not ensure an end to open defecation in India.

The country needs to confront social-cultural reasons to get over this ‘sanitation crisis’. A wellthought of awareness campaign alongside constructing toilets for every community and household is needed to bring about a change and improve condition on ground Abhishek Pandey, Principal Correspondent

32 November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

VIEW POINT

open defecation. At present, less than three per cent of Bangladesh, 23 percent of Pakistan, and one percent of China, defecate in the open.

“

Harsh Vardhan Union Health Minister

More needs to be done by government and private agencies to build national awareness of the dangers of poor sanitation.

The fact that India’s health administrators failed to spread mass awareness on diarrhoea management speaks volumes of the inefficiency of previous programmes

I

“

n the pitch darkness of midnight, thousands of women still set out for an open field to relieve themselves, as there is no access to toilets at home or nearby vicinity in many human settlements.

Promising to change the saddening state of affairs in the next five years, the NDA government has initiated nationwide mission on cleanliness and ensuring availability of toilets to every household by 2019.

Around 130 million households in India do not have access to toilets. And, over 50 percent of India’s population attends nature’s call in fields, along railway tracks, behind bushes, or by roadsides. Of the one billion people in the world who have no toilet, India accounts for nearly 600 million. The situation in Indian villages is worse as more than 68 percent villagers defecate in open.

India is far behind from its neighbours in making efforts to end

Perils of open defecation

India is plaguing with various health issues because of prevalence of large scale open defecation in the country as it is in not merely a sanitation issue but it’s in the core of healthcare.

A United Nations (UN) report on sanitation says: “Open defecation perpetuates the vicious cycle of disease and poverty and is an affront to personal dignity.”

“Open defecation becomes disastrous when practiced by groups in close contact with each other. As India’s population is huge, growing rapidly and densely settled, it is impossible even in rural areas to keep human faeces from crops, wells, food and children’s hands. Ingested bacteria and worms spread diseases, especially of the intestine. They cause enteropathy, a chronic illness that prevents the body from absorbing calories and nutrients. That helps to explain why, in spite of rising incomes and better diets, rates of child malnourishment in India do not improve faster,” the report says.

According to the Unicef, the UN’s agency for children, nearly 50 percent Indian children remain malnourished and open defecation is one of the major causes.

It is linked to a numerous health problems such as stunting in children, diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid, hepatitis, polio, worm infestation, reduced physical growth, impaired cognitive function, and lowered IQs. It is to be noted that diarrhoea is still the biggest cause of child deaths around the world and 25 percent of deaths occur in India.

Unavailability of toilets for girls and women has various other social

consequences. Many teenage girls in India leave school when they start menstruating because they have no privacy.

Around 42 percent schools in India do not have toilets for girls.

The situation is alarming in North Eastern states and Jammu & Kashmir, where toilets for girls are available in only 22 to 30 percent schools.

Rajasthan and Punjab are best of the lot having toilet facilities for girls in their 90 percent of schools.

Sexual violence is another threat that women face in day to day life when they venture out to attend nature’s call.

Recent incidents in Western Uttar Pradesh, in which two girls were raped and killed, have highlighted the ground-reality.

Ending open defecation will bring immense benefits by helping India in improving health standards, and in turn show affirmative progress on health indicators such as Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), malnutrition among children and women among others.

Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft, said during his recent visit to India, “Making toilets either at the community or household-level and having them affordable and attractive– which in the case of toilets implies that they don’t smell badly–that’s a tough challenge. If you were to go to every city in India and get piped clean water for every toilet in every home and a pipeline that treat the water, you’re talking about literally hundreds of billions of dollars.”

According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report, an average of Rs 6,500 per person is lost in India due to lack of cleanliness and hygiene.

The report also suggests that a nine times return for every rupee spent on sanitation is possible. These returns www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

33

VIEW POINT

1000 young lives are lost everyday due to diarrhoea

About 22 million girls do not have access to separate toilet facility in school

40 % of children suffer from the stunting

50 % of malnutrition is attributable to water, sanitation and hygiene

Country

People defecate in open (in million) India 626 Indonesia 63 Pakistan 40 Ethiopia 38 Nigeria 34 Sudan 19 Nepal 15 China 14 Nigeria 12 Burkina Faso 9.7

“

Yamini Aiyar Director, Accountability Initiative, Policy Research Group

Targets for construction of toilets are somewhat irrelevant to resolving the sanitation problem. Building toilets does not mean that people will use them. People need to be taught the value of sanitation

34 November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

“

State Schools having

girls’ toilets (%) Andhra Pradesh 55.3 Arunachal Pradesh 28.6 Assam 38.9 Bihar 37.6 Chhattisgarh 34.0 Delhi 80.4 Goa 66.9 Gujarat 71.5 Haryana 85.2 Himachal Pradesh 65.9 Jammu & Kashmir 22.4 Jharkhand 59.8 Karnataka 73.4 Kerala 77.5 Madhya Pradesh 34.8 Maharashtra 68.9 Manipur 23.2 Meghalaya 22.8 Mizoram 58.3 Nagaland 67.2 Odisha 38.1 Punjab 90.2 Rajasthan 91.8 Sikkim 75.2 Tamil Nadu 67.3 Tripura 42.0 Uttar Pradesh 76.0 Uttarakhand 50.9 West Bengal 47.8 All-India 58.2

Stats ♦♦ 1 billion people practice open defecation globally. India accounts for 600 million, around fifty percent of its total population ♦♦ India’s neighbours have performed better in tackling the crisis. Only 3 percent people in Bangladesh, 1 percent in China and 23 percent in Pakistan defecate in open ♦♦ Around 68 percent rural population of the country defecates in open ♦♦ Every minute 1.1 million litres of human excrement enters in to River Ganges ♦♦ Lack of access to sanitation, including the practice of open defecation, costs the world’s poorest countries USD 260 billion every year

are in the form of improved health, lowered mortality rates, higher school attendance rates, and disease control.

Indian government initiated Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) in 1999 that was later named Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan. Under the scheme, the government spends over Rs 7000 crore every year to subsidise rural toilet construction in the country.

The per–toilet subsidy is currently around Rs 5000 under the scheme.

But the scheme did not pick up as the poor could not afford to construct and maintain the toilets and it is evident by government records.

Ministry of Rural Development reports that 78 million toilets were constructed under the TSC until

VIEW POINT

“

Bill Gates Founder, Microsoft

Making toilets either at the community or household level and having them affordable and attractive is a tough challenge. If you were to provide piped clean water for toilet in every home, you’re talking about literally hundreds of billions of dollars

“

March 2011, but the Census (2011) shows only 51 million households as owning working toilets.

Socio-cultural barrier

Open defecation is not only linked with non-existence of toilets in every household but it is a social-cultural habit in rural India. People in rural India are of the view that they should not defecate in the house where they live, eat and worship.

Even many Hindu scriptures including Manu Smriti encourage defecation in the open, far from home, to avoid ritual impurity. Many people, especially in the villages of North and Eastern India, still prefer attending nature’s call in open—even if they have toilets at home.

Achieving better sanitation is not an easy task there are behavioural aspects that prevent people from adopting improved sanitation.

Yamini Aiyar, Director of Accountability Initiative—a Delhibased policy research group, said, “Targets for construction of toilets are somewhat irrelevant to resolving the sanitation problem. Building toilets does not mean that people will use them and there seems to be a host of cultural, social and caste-based

reasons for that. People need to be taught the value of sanitation.”

A 2009 report on open defecation

by Asian Development Bank (ADB) reveals religion and caste based differentials. The report said that only 41 percent Hindu households have a toilet in their house, followed by Muslim households with 60 percent.

Studies of India’s population show how since the 1960s child mortality rates have consistently been higher in Hindu families than Muslim ones— though Muslims typically are poorer, less educated and have less access to clean water. At present, out of every 100 children, 1.7 more Muslim than Hindu children survive to five years.

Christian and Sikh households fare much better, at 70 percent and 74 percent respectively. It is also worth noting that, of the ten poor performing states listed above, eight of them have Hindu populations exceeding 88 percent of their total populations.

Caste-based differentials are scarier.

Scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs), which include some of the most disadvantaged groups in India, both suffer from poor household sanitation and drainage.

ST households have the lowest ownership of toilets—only 18 percent in 2005–06. Moreover, only 23 percent of ST households have access to any form of drainage. This is likely due to a high degree of inequality in access to basic drainage facilities associated with dispersed hamlets and remote rural and forest areas. SC households fare slightly better, with access at 32 percent for toilets and 46 percent for drainage.

Need of nationwide awareness

Building toilets will not solve the sanitation crisis. People can be seen urinating even outside the public toilets. The reasons could be a behavioural issue or poor cleanliness in public toilets. Alongside building toilets, the government needs to make a mechanism to maintain those toilets and promote their use.

It is evident that, according to a

survey of 3,200 rural households by the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics in the National Capital Region (NCR), the majority of people in households with a government latrine don’t use it.

The UPA government in the year 2012 created a five-year ‘Sanitation and Hygiene Advocacy and Communication Strategy Framework’ to advise states on how to counter the culture of open defecation, including setting up local education committees. However, the political will to implement such initiative seem to be absent. It is to be noted that almost more than half of the country’s sanitation education budget since 1999 hasn’t been spent, according to the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. Harsh Vardhan, Union Health Minister, said in a written statement on July 28, “More needs to be done by government and private agencies to build national awareness of the dangers of poor sanitation. The fact that India’s health administrators failed to spread mass awareness on diarrhoea management speaks volumes of the inefficiency of previous programs.” India spent 2.6 billion rupees in fiscal 2013 on a campaign to help eradicate polio after 44 cases were reported between 2010 and 2011, according to the World Health Organization. In the same year, the nation spent half that amount on education for toilets and sanitation.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, announced that the government has set Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birthday in 2019 as its target for achieving “total sanitation,” including access to toilets for all 1.2 billion residents. Jaitley doubled spending on new toilets to 40 billion rupees. Ratio of the funds that can be spent on information, education and communication, remains at 15 percent.

Direct your queries to

abhishek@urbanupdate.in

www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

35

CENTRE STAGE

Smart Cities

Transcending mobility Mobility in urban space comes at a price: traffic congestion, increased fuel consumption, and rising pollution and noise levels. Twenty years from now, if we want transportation that is enjoyable, stress-free, and comfortable, cities need to adapt integrated smart solutions that are eco-friendly Prathiba Raju, Assistant Editor

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s cities are expanding, the urban mobility is getting more complicated with congestion, endless jams, long commuting times, noise and air pollution. The urban planners cite that the city transport cannot be seen in isolation from the overall cityplanning process. Each and every metropolis needs an integrated smart urban transport.

In 2011, nearly 350 million people lived in cities. About 300 million new residents will be moving in next few decades to cities. The impact on urban infrastructure, particularly on transportation is increasing expeditiously.

In many developing countries, the unplanned urban expansion results in a wide variety of urban transportation problems. In addition, if these urban transportation problems are neglected, they can have a number of negative effects on the city as a whole, including exacerbation of the global warming problem due to the greenhouse gases emissions, a greater impact on economic activities due to traffic congestion, and an increased number of traffic accidents leading to a reduced level of lifestyle satisfaction.

Pacing up

According to transport experts by 36 November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

“

M Venkaiah Naidu UD Minister

We need to maximise the utility of urban public transport systems. The centre will work with states on the National Urban Transport Policy, which envisaged around 80 percent of urban population to utilise public transport for intracity commuting

“

2020, there will be 450 million vehicles plying on Indian roads. As of now the total number of vehicles in India stands at about 100 million. Most of the vehicles are owned in the urban areas with a maximum density in the metropolitan cities.

In a recent conference, Union Minister for Urban Development, M Venkaiah Naidu, said, “We need to maximise the utility of urban public transport systems. The centre will work with states on the National Urban Transport Policy, which

envisaged around 80 percent of urban population to utilise public transport for intra-city commuting.”

Naidu said the government was studying the Barcelona city public transport model for implementation in the country.

“More than 80 percent of the people in Barcelona use public transport. It’s a good example. We have to learn from this. Contrary to this, in Atlanta in the US, over 85 percent utilise private transport,” Naidu added.

Estimates by NGOs indicate that 4,86,476 accidents took place on Indian roads, in which 1,37,576 people died. Air pollution has contributed to more than 6,20,000 premature deaths.

Urban transport’s energy use and greenhouse gas emissions are set to increase almost seven-fold in the next 20 years.

The National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP) suggested that to improve urban mobility in cities a connect between urban planning and the needs of different classes of citizens needs to be addressed.

For example, the NUTP had cited that the bus fleets in the mega cities have shown negative growth between 2000 to 2007; walking spaces are shrinking, and pedestrians as well as bicyclists perceive increased risk of injury. So NUTP has advocated a people-centric planning approach.

CENTRE STAGE

But experts say that vision has not translated into structural change.

“Smart City draft by the Urban Development Ministry, when it comes to urban mobility talks only about improving the technology, but we need an integrated transport system.

Improved technology can give us comfortable transport like the Metro services, but what about the last mile connectivity. In transport sector, one agency cannot decide on their own. They have to consult multiple agencies but that lacks in every city,” Ruchita Bansal, Programme Officer, Sustainable Mobility Programme, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) told Urban Update.

Frame regulations

Cities urban mobility needs a paradigm shift; experts suggest that there needs to be a unified institutional framework for urban transport.

“The statutory Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority, a body which

“

Pramod Uniyal Former Additional Member, Indian Railway Board

We need to get back to our basics how easy and comfortable is a commuter from when he starts from his origin and destination. It is not just the cost of fuel and fare, but many value the time they take to travel

“

is supposed to coordinate and streamline infrastructure creation and land use, and integrate bus, rail, and feeder services has been not effective in many cities and falls short of the

goal. It hardly serves the purpose,” said Prachi Merchant, Consultant - Urban Planning, Mumbai Transformation Support Unit (MTSU).

Any urban transport project be it Bus Rapid Transit Systems (BRTS) or cycling tracks in cities, holistic thinking is necessary, suggest experts.

“Government should consider ways to re-focus on sustainable transport systems. Before any city starts to implement cycle tracks or BRTS, they should know whether it is feasible. For example, in Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) the cycling track are turned into makeshift parking lots.

Before implementing such projects, a small study with the locals and the feasibility report of the project is necessary,” Merchant said.

In a recent report, World Bank, President Jim Young Kim, said that India needs to build 1,000 kilometres of new BRTS lanes in about twenty large cities.

“If India built 1,000 kilometres of www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

37

CENTRE STAGE

Connectivity vital

National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP) suggests that to improve urban mobility in cities a connect between urban planning and the needs of different classes of citizens needs to be addressed

Tech smart

Smart technology can change how the urban cities move as it would provide better visibility into urban transport systems and the systems that surround the city, cities can have faster, more efficient traffic management, timelier infrastructure repairs, improved traffic flow and road safety, and faster commuting.

Smart urban mobility is vital for functioning of cites in near future over 70 percent of the world’s population will be living in cities. It ensures ease of individual transport in megacities; it includes all modes of transport in rural and semi-urban areas as well as in urban megacities while attending to environmental concerns. ♦♦ Reliable travel times and easy to use travel information ♦♦ Accessibility of the cities to support their economic development ♦♦ Reduce environmental and socio-economic impacts of transport ♦♦ Re-conquer public space from private car use for ecofriendly modes and urban planning

Prachi Merchant Consultant - Urban Planning, MTSU

“

Government should consider ways to re-focus on sustainable transport systems. Before any city starts to implement cycle tracks or BRTS, they should know whether it is feasible

38 November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

“

new, bus rapid transit lanes, over 20 years, that could save more than 27,000 lives by reducing air pollution and accidents and create more than 1,28,000 jobs. It would also have large, positive effects on India’s GDP, its agriculture, and the global climate,” Kim said.

Smart transport - a leap forward

Key elements of smart urban transport is information and technology, efficient operations and integration which will be significant for social, environmental, and economic benefits.

“We need to get back to our basics

Ruchita Bansal Programme Officer Sustainable Mobility Programme, CSE

“

Smart city draft by the urban development ministry, when it comes to urban mobility, talks only about improving the technology; but we need an integrated transport system

“

how easy and comfortable is a commuter from when he starts from his origin and destination. It is not just the cost of fuel and fare, but many value the time they take to travel. In smart mobility, a city resident should be able to use the latest information communication technology, to know where there is a parking space in a mall if before they could reach,” Pramod Uniyal, former additional member, Indian Railway Board told Urban Update.

He also added that smart cities, backbone could be smart technology.

Cities can develop advanced traffic management systems viz traffic cameras, variable message signs, traffic detectors, weather stations, traffic websites, and mobile apps to improve urban transport.

Adding that smart technology can change how the urban cities move as it would provide better visibility into urban transport systems and the systems that surround the city. Cities can have faster, more efficient traffic management, improved traffic flow and road safety, and faster commuting.

Further, improving transport systems can reduce fuel costs and CO2 emissions.

Direct your queries to

prathiba@urbanupdate.in

VOX-POP

Energy Efficiency

Utilising efficient means Energy is a basic input to the national economy, particularly in agricultural and industrial sectors, apart from being an instrument for improving the quality of life. Provision of adequate quantities and kind of energy will continue to be a challenge to the government and the Urban Local Bodies for providing civic services for the citizens Team Urban Update

T

he rapid urbanisation has not only created an uneven influx but has led to inequity in terms of distribution of services like water, sanitation and power. Power being an essential component ensuring basic amenities to the people via enabling supply of electricity, water among others.

Energy efficiency is one concept that has been adopted and initiated as an important ingredient essential for meeting the incessant power demands around the world. Ever since the population influx boomed globally, man’s ever-increasing energy needs also grew with a widened supply-demand gap along with huge investments required to meet them.

40 October 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

In the Indian sub-continent, the demand to meet the energy requirement for the overflowing population was a Herculean task.

It increased as the migration of people to cities in search of better opportunities rose. That is where the industries and the government sought out to incorporate energy efficient tools to reduce the load on power, while easing the energy demand. The current peak demand shortage of the country is 14 percent while the energy deficit is 8.4 percent. For efficient use of electricity requires persistent energy conservation efforts.

Natural efficiency

About 70 percent of India’s electricity generation capacity is from fossil

fuels, with coal accounting for 40 percent of India’s total energy generation followed by crude oil and natural gas at 28 percent and 6 percent respectively. India is largely dependent on fossil fuel imports to meet its energy demands.

By 2030, India’s dependence on energy imports is expected to exceed 53 percent of the country’s total energy consumption. In 2009-10, the country imported 159.26 million tonnes of crude oil which amounts to 80 percent of its domestic crude oil consumption and 31 percent of the country’s total imports are oil imports.

The growth of electricity generation in India has been hindered by domestic coal shortages. And, as a consequence, India’s coal imports for

VOX-POP

V Chandrashekar, Epic Energy Ltd

“India needs to regulate the lightings with ISI hallmark maybe because of the rampant duplicate manufacturing which in turn reverses the good effects of efficient lights towards being environment friendly”

Rajan, Unitech Associated Pvt Ltd

“The cities should plan to utilise energy consumption in such a way that there is optimum electricity that can save voltage. I suggest that in a smart city no one should use a stabiliser as it is very self consuming.

Smart cities should have right distribution of power” Gulshan Aghi, CEO, Trilux lighting

“By 2020, the LEDs will have to be complied 50 per cent in almost all the sectors as per the regulations of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), which is an estimation towards the efforts taken to ensure energy efficient initiatives in the country”

Rajesh Jain Managing Director, WAPP

“The major focus of the government has been industrial sector. There is need to focus on other areas to ensure better energy efficiency”

electricity generation increased by 18 percent in 2010.

Due to rapid economic expansion, India has one of the world’s fastest growing energy markets and is expected to be the second-largest contributor to the increase in global energy demand by 2035, accounting for 18 percent of the rise in global energy consumption. Given India’s growing energy demands and limited domestic fossil fuel reserves, the country has ambitious plans to expand its renewable and nuclear power industries. India has the world’s fifth largest wind power market and plans to add about 20GW of solar power capacity by 2022. India also envisages to increase the contribution of nuclear power to overall electricity generation capacity from 4.2 to 9 percent within 25 years. The country has five nuclear reactors under construction (third highest in the world) and plans to construct 18 additional nuclear reactors (second highest in the world) by 2025.

Ideal model

The easy execution of energy efficiency model has many hurdles on its way.

With numerous benefits of the efficient lighting comes the duality, hoarding, duplicity and the authenticity factor along with regulatory norms. www.urbanupdate.in | October 2014

41

VOX-POP V Chandrashekar of Epic Energy Ltd told Urban Update, “India needs to regulate the lightings with ISI hallmark maybe because of the rampant duplicate manufacturing which in turn reverses the good effects of efficient lights towards being environment friendly.”

We have numerous companies and industries as well as organisations vying for the energy efficient lights.

The country needs to wake up from the slumber of black market and duplicate lighting products, Shekhar added.

Rajesh Jain, Managing Director of WAPP, told Urban Update: “The major focus of the government has been industrial sector. There is need to focus on other areas to ensure better energy efficiency.” Jain added that one could be generating energy from waste. Lot of bio-energy can be recovered. Twenty to forty percent of energy is consumed by pumps and water/energy. Success stories need to be created to set the examples.

Policy framework shall push for better funding opportunities.”

Reuse and recycle of LEDs

Recycling is a term used to ensure green initiatives to procure an environmental friendly atmosphere.

Lights are generally made with the use of mercury and gases like nitrogen and neon. To reuse the normal tube lights is in itself a cumbersome task, says Trilux’s CEO, Gulshan Aghi. He added that LEDs could be the solution of the persisting problem. The LED lights are eco-friendly and easy to recycle as their glasses are melted down to be used for other useful applications.

By 2020, the LEDs will have to be complied 50 percent in almost all the sectors as per the regulations of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), which is an estimation towards the efforts taken to ensure energy efficient initiatives in the country, added Gulshan.

Role of the government

Energy conservation has emerged as a major policy objective, and the Energy 42 October 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

Efficient energy The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) quest to diversify its energy sources and push a clean-energy component into the energy grid has received a huge boost in the 2013-14 budget, where it indicates government’s readiness to spend Rs 33,000 cr in the following few initiatives: ♦♦ Generation of grid-interactive/ off grid renewable power systems to supplement fossil fuel based electricity generation ♦♦ Standalone renewable energy systems / devices and service to supplement / provide energy needs for cooking, lighting and motive power in rural areas ♦♦ Renewable energy products and services for urban, industrial and commercial areas based out of urban and industrial waste effluents ♦♦ Support renewable energy related R&D activities/ projects taken up by institutions, universities and industry ♦♦ Fostering International Cooperation in new and renewable energy sector

Conservation Act 2001, was passed by the parliament in September 2001, 35.5 percent of the population still live without access to electricity. This Act requires large energy consumers to adhere to energy consumption norms; new buildings to follow the Energy Conservation Building Code; and appliances to meet energy performance standards and to display energy consumption labels.

The Act also created the Bureau of Energy Efficiency to implement the provisions of the Act. Outlining various features to boost renewable energy, Piyush Goyal Union Minister for Power and Coal said “ the government is working on a policy for the renewable energy sector to attract investment worth $ 100 billion within the next five years”.

However when government is taken steps with rapid urbanisation planners and city managers must be prepared to meet the challenges caused on energy supply and consumption.

Faced with grim predictions of energy supply and consumption through fossil fuels, cities are

responding with tremendous efforts to capture and cultivate renewable resources. There is an urge to develop sustainable and renewable energy sources enhancing the usage of wind, solar, geothermal and biomass energy, and also in-search for cleaner, smarter, and more conscientious methods of energy production, transmission, and distribution, inform experts.

Awareness vital

Rajan of Unitech Associated Pvt Ltd told Urban Update that it is very necessary that awareness is generated to every individual on the importance of energy efficiency.

While throwing light on the importance of the sector and how to incorporate the utility while planning smart cities, he said: “The cities should plan to utilise energy consumption in such a way that there is optimum electricity that can save voltage. efficiently. I suggest that in a smart city no one should use a stabiliser as it is very self consuming. Smart cities should have right distribution of power.”

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EVENTS

December Events EnviroTech 2014 Dec 3, CII NR Headquarters, Sector 31, Chandigarh Energy Storage India Dec 4-5, Kempinski Ambience Hotel, New Delhi 6th IEEE POWER INDIA Dec 5-7, Le-Meridian, New Delhi Win India 2014 Dec 10-13, Pragati Maidan New Delhi India Composites Show Dec 10-13, Bombay Exhibition Center, Mumbai International Groundwater Conference Dec 10-13, Hyderabad IFSEC India 2014 Dec 11-13, Pragati Maidan New Delhi Waste Management Summit 2014 Dec 16-17, Palladium Hotel, Mumbai IEEE Conference on Vehicular Electronics and Safety 2014 Dec 16-18, Hyderabad Sustainable Habitat For Developing Dec 16-18, CEPT University Ahmedabad Advances in Green Energy Dec 17-18, Trivandrum, Kerala 18th National Power Systems Dec 18-20, IIT Guwahati India-International Water Expo Dec 19-21, Chennai Trade & Convention Centre, Chennai

44 November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

‘Cities for All’ offers solutions to improve urban liveability HYDERABAD: Telangana government and the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) in association with the Metropolis organised the XI Metropolis World Congress 2014— Cities for All—in Hyderabad recently.

Over 2,000 delegates including 400 participants from 50 countries participated at the four day event organized between October 6 and 10. Mayors of several member cities like Johannesburg, Barcelona, Berlin, Tehran among others, technocrats, administrators and urban experts were among the participants.

A host of urban issues related to housing, health, transportation, road designs, technology adaptation, urban equity, sustainability, youth empowerment, metropolitan governance and urban financing were discussed in around 60 different sessions organized during the five-day

event.

Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu, while addressing a session during the XI World Metropolis Congress, said that India needs to spend USD 250 billion to improve basic urban infrastructure.

He added that the government has taking initiatives to attract investment to handle rapid urbanisation in the country and the Smart City project is one of them.

President Pranab Mukherjee addressed the valedictory function on October 9. He said Urban India today lacks basic amenities and infrastructure, with a huge populace lacking access to safe drinking water and toilets. Other speakers included former President APJ Abdul Kalam, Nobel Prize winner RK Pachauri, Metropolis President Jean-Paul Huchon, Prof Carlos Moreno, etc.

‘India has potential for environmental technology’ MUMBAI: The second edition of International Trade Fair for Water, Sewage, Refuse and Recycling (IFAT India), that concluded recently in the commercial capital of the country, underlined that India has a suitable potential and scope in improvising and enhancing its technological innovations in the environmental market.

The event saw exhibitors and visitors being equally satisfied and authenticated the importance of this trade fair for the highly promising Indian market.

Shankar Aggarwal, Secretary of the Ministry of Urban Development of the Government of India, said: “We looked for a platform that provides a good stage for the stakeholders to understand more about the new opportunities and weave their future plans to make advantage of the same.

It should also provide municipal

and government authorities the opportunity to witness the solutions for environment technology under one roof and we look forward to IFAT India to assist in this endeavour.”

Gerhard Gerritzen, Deputy Managing Director of Messe München, commented: “As regards to environmental technology, there is much potential in India; with the new government and the investment in the environmental sector that is being planned, the sector can look to the future with confidence”.

Bhupinder Singh, Deputy CEO of MMI India, added: “This year the quality of visitors was much appreciated by the exhibitors. There are already several projects on environment that are undertaken with the involvement of the private sector and the government. IFAT India serves an important market and we felt this in the last three days.”

EVENTS

A step towards better urban mobility Effective and efficient urban mobility enables a highly efficient transport system in cities offering easy access to jobs, education, and healthcare. It is an essential component for making any city smart. Planning and management of intelligent, seamless and inclusive mass public transport systems and non-motorized transport along the sustainable path for supporting economic growth and enhancing the quality of life in urban areas is need of the hour. Urban Mobility Conference and Expo 2014 will address the key challenges cities are facing in urban transport management and offer viable solutions Team Urban Update

Urban Mobility Conference and Expo this year strives to provide a platform for the manufacturers, consultants, service providers and others to come forward and present their products and skill sets to national, state and city representatives for improving mobility in their respective cities. The theme for this year’s conference is ‘Sustainable Transport for Sustainable Cities’.

The four-day UMI Conference and Expo will disseminate and showcase the latest development in urban transport technology and systems, implementation of best transport projects, propagation of innovative ideas, presentation of research in the topical areas of interest in urban transport and exchange of good urban transport initiatives and practices in the field. The latest technology particularly the modern buses and computer systems helping in traffic management are the special attraction of this event.

The number of registered motor

vehicles in the country has been growing rapidly since 1981. According to the data available with the Ministry of Transport, number of registered vehicles went up from a mere 5.4 million in 1981 to 141.8 million in 2011.

This rapid motorisation has also led to other associated problems of high energy consumption, uncontrolled air pollution and high rate of fatalities due to road accidents.

UMI is an annual flagship event of Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India. In 2013, over 1000 delegates from 28 states and 72

Urban Mobility Conference and Expo 2014 strives to provide a platform for the manufacturers, consultants, service providers and others to present their products and skill sets to city representatives for improving mobility in their respective cities

cities apart from industrial experts attended. This year, more than 100 companies functioning in the sector are expected to participate.

The key topics which are proposed to be discussed during the conference include safety and security issues, sustainable transport system, challenges of Tier II cities, Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS), Train Transit System, Green Transport, Intelligent Transport Systems, Financing Strategies for Public Transport, land use transport integration, role of urban transport in smart cities, regulatory framework for Urban Mobility, urban freight and its impacts, and other related issues.

The primary objective of the conference is to bring together decision makers, professionals and other stakeholders to brainstorm key issues. It also seeks to highlight latest developments around the world to help them keep up-to-date with best urban transport practices in India and across the world. www.urbanupdate.in | November 2014

45

URBAN AGENDA

FDI to boost ‘Smart Cities’, Housing for All Apresh Chandra Mishra Managing Editor apresh@urbanupdate.in

The government is all set to allow 100 percent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and ease norms in size and capitalisation of the construction sector, giving a boost to its ambitious 100 smart cities and housing for all plans 46 November 2014 | www.urbanupdate.in

T

he US$157 billion Indian construction sector, which has seen downward trend in FDI inflow (2012-13, it fell to $1.3 billion from $3.1 billion the previous year), has a large role to play in Smart City project and Housing for All plans envisaged by the current government.

A recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) says that India’s construction sector is expected to grow at 7-8 percent each year over the next decade following the election of a new government.

It suggests, the country will see increased economic growth, and the removal of barriers to foreign investment will spur demand for construction over the coming 12 to 18 months.

An estimated US$1 trillion is being spent on infrastructure over the five years to 2017 and there is increased investment in industrial projects by the government. But it is the private housing sector that the PwC report highlights as a key growth area.

The smart city projects need global knowledge linkages and the construction firms need to be in closer relationship with ICT companies to work on the innovations to build a holistic environment. Technology

service providers have started approaching construction companies for upcoming projects. The stakes are high and the value is enormous as Smart Cities programmes for ICT companies are global and acted upon locally. It will be an interesting shuffle of the construction industry as far as smart city projects are concerned.

‘Housing for All’ is another ambitious plan by the government where investment in the construction development sector has a multiplier effect by way of infrastructure development.

The overall shortage in EWS and LIG housing in India has been estimated at close to 2.65 crores (26.5 million) dwelling units as per a report published by the government and is expected to touch 3.8 crores (38 million) by the year 2030.

Out of current shortage of 2.65 crores (26.5 million) units, EWS alone has a requirement of 2.3 crores (23 million) units. Demand for real estate has been one of the drivers of construction sector growth over the last 10 year.

‘Housing For All’ has the potential to drive demand for real estate, as housing continues to be a favoured investment asset among Indian households.

MUMBAI METROPOLITAN REGION DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY Transforming Mumbai Into A World Class City

MMRDA EASES

Mobility

PROJECTS THAT PROVIDE RELIEF FROM TRAFFIC WOES Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar Metro Corridor – 11.4 km – 2,356 crore ♦♦ Journey time reduced from 70 minutes to 20 minutes ♦♦ Has provided East-West connectivity ♦♦ 4-coach Metro carries 1,178 commuters ♦♦ MMRDA intends to develop a 150-km Metro network Chembur-Wadala-Gadge Maharaj Chowk Mono Corridor – 20 km – 2,460 crore ♦♦ 9-km Chembur to Wadala corridor successfully launched ♦♦ Journey time reduced from 50 minutes to 20 minutes ♦♦ 4-coach Mono carries 600 commuters ♦♦ The second phase from Wadala to Gadge Maharaj Chowk will be completed next year

Roads completed under MUTP Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road, Santacruz-Chembur Link Road Roads completed under MUIP Eastern Express Highway, Western Express Highway, Swami Vivekanand Marg, Lal Bahadur shastri Marg, Main Link Road, Andheri-Kurla Link Road (Saki Naka to Kurla), Sahar Elevated Road, N.S.Phadke Marg, SakiVihar Road, Marol-Maroshi Road, Mahakali Caves Road, B.D.Sawant Road (Dhaku Road), Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (Extended), Sion-Dharavi Road Flyovers completed under MUIP Dahisar ROB, Thakur Complex, Times of India, Dindoshi, Santacruz airport, Barfiwala Lane, Suman Nagar, Navghar, Sion Hospital, King’s Circle, Hindamata, Lalbaug, Milan ROB, Amar Junction Flyovers completed under Extended MUIP Waghbil, Manpada, Patlipada, Panvel, Kapurbawdi-2

Eastern Freeway – 16.4 km – 1,464 crore ♦♦ The Freeway connects Southern Mumbai with Eastern suburbs ♦♦ Runs from Orange Gate to GhatkoparMankhurd Link Road ♦♦ Journey time reduced from 90 minutes to 25 minutes ♦♦ The Freeway has been providing quicker connectivity to Thane, Nasik, Pune, Goa sahar Elevated Road – 2 km – 400 crore ♦♦ The Elevated Road is a boon for International Commuters ♦♦ From WEH to International Airport within five minutes ♦♦ The signal-free road provides 3 lanes for up and down traffic ♦♦ The beautiful Palm trees and shrubs offers enjoyable driving experience