Smart City: Modi govt 'lacks clarity', yet to work out 'basic conceptual framework'

 

One of India's topmost urban experts, Dr Isher Judge Ahluwalia, has taken strong exception to the Government of India's decision to go ahead with building 100 smart cities, as separate greenfield entities, as isolated islands away the existing towns and cities, without any notion about what they should look like. Ahluwalia, who was closely associated with the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), one of previous UPA government's flagship programmes, and continues to advise the Narendra Modi government on urban issues, insisted that there is lack of clarity on the concept of smart city in the Government of India.
Delivering the Pravin Visaria Memorial Lecture, organised by the Gujarat Institute of Development Research (GIDR), Ahmedabad, at the Ahmedabad Management Association, Ahluwalia said, “I have been asking India's urban development officials to provide at least one document which tells us what a smart city in their view should look like. However, they do not have any.” She added, “They have assured me that the document would be ready soon.”

Ahluwalia is currently member of the recently constituted Urban Institute of India which has been set up by the Government of India. Associated with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and is considered by scholars as a strong advocate of the neo-liberal school, she wanted the existing urban towns and cities to inclusively acquire a "smart" character by providing them with a e-technology space, urban market reforms, capacity building, and enabling a decentralised financial mechanism to the urban local bodies.
Answering a question what she thought of two of Modi's dream projects being sold as possible early bird smart cities – the Gujarat International Finance Tec-city (GIFT) and Dholera Special Investment Region (SIR), in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar districts, respectively -- Ahluwalia appeared sarcastic. She said, they sounded nice. It was always good to dream big. However, her concept of a smart city was very different – they must satisfy the aspirations of responsive citizens of the existing urban areas in an inclusive way. She hoped best luck to GIFT and Dholera City.
One of the senior-most economists, Ahluwalia, who is also wife of former Planning Commission vice-chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, said, the best definition of smart city she ever got was from the deputy Prime Minister of Singapore. The Singaporean dignitary told her that a smart city should be able to articulate the needs of its citizens, who should be fully involved in its development and provision of basic facilities like roads, water, sanitation, transport, and so on.
Wanting Indian cities not depend on the whims of the political class, who want tax cuts ahead of a poll, she disagreed with those who insist on public-private partnership as the way to reform . According to her, in such a scenario, the corporate bodies would be interested in eliciting returns for their investment, and the urban bodies would have to act according their wishes. However, there was lack of political will to do it.
Pointing towards how the political class is not interested in catering to the needs of urbanization, Ahluwalia said, the number of Census towns in 2001 were 1,362, and they have increased to 3,894 now, a quantum leap. A Census town is big village which has acquired urban characteristics -- its population exceeds 5,000, has at least 75% of male working population is employed outside of the agriculture, and a minimum population density of 400 persons per km.
Disagreeing with those who still believe in the dictum that “India lives in villages” and economic development depended on the development of villages, Ahluwalia said, the world had changed considerably ever since Mahatma Gandhi pointed this out. If India were to grow at a faster pace of development, which is the requirement of the economy, its economy should be urban-based, and not agriculture-based.

Giving the example of Punjab, which depended its development model on agriculture, Ahluwalia said, its per capita income has slipped behind several other states which have developed industrially. Once Punjab had the highest per capita income, but currently it had the sixth position. “An agriculture-based economy can grow at the most at 4 or 4.5 per cent rate of growth, while we want the Indian economy to grow by at least eight per cent”, she said.
Pointing out that urban India, accounted for two-thirds of the total GDP of India, Ahluwalia -- who currently heads Delhi-based think-tank Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, she said, despite this, even today just 31 per cent people lived in urban areas, which was much lower than many third world countries in the world, including China, Indonesia and Brazil.