Whether the Government’s recent proposal for 100 smart cities should be totally new green field projects or improvements of existing towns or a combination of both can be debated and contested vociferously. But I strongly contest it to be used as a medium for fear mongering about smart city being morally and socially indefensible as argued by Janaki Nair piece “In pursuit of smartness”.
The author in undue haste claims smart
cities as scaling up of gated community vision to city level. Contrarily, the gated
communities prop up for the reason that urban local bodies are unable to
provide minimum basic services in an equitable manner to all citizens. Such
gated communities largely attempt to create alternative water supply, sewerage and
solid waste systems and spaces for other social pursuits. The reason that our cities
(big and small) are grappling with financial resources to invest in city
systems and deliver basic acceptable levels of service, the relatively well off
sections of population will continue to seek alternatives. This at times may
also result in huddling based on caste or related economic activities.
While accusing nation to be short on
just and humane urban vision, one needs to recognize such a situation is a
result of utopian expectations of physical form delivering in absence of
technical, financial and social resources that are bare essential to run our
cities. Thus, before jumping to larger narratives, it is imperative to break
down the fantasy of “humane urban vision” of the author in to clear indicators of
various services and fix responsibility to the Institutions who will deliver
this in a participative manner. Some dirty calculations may come in handy of
how we plan to fund these ventures not only for capital cost but also for
operational expenditures that will be needed to be raised from its users. The privileges of being on the “Activism” and “Always
Oppose” mode should be toned down if they allow an escape without raising
pertinent questions or providing ideas (if not a road map) to the contentious
issues surrounding us. A rather good way of articulating concerns on the smart
city hullaballoo is illustrated in editorial by Sunita Narain http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/how-smart-smart-city
where she actually shares some ideas for being smart. It also lays down the
argument for reinventing urban growth through smart thinking for water,
sanitation and transportation. Such ideas convey real concern and challenges
and help to think.
To quote from the Finance minister’s
maiden budget speech: “The Prime Minister has a vision of developing 'one hundred Smart Cities', as
satellite towns of larger cities and by modernizing the existing mid-sized
cities”.[1] Thus the idea of modernizing existing small towns in not
ruled out completely. While the framework for smart cities evolves and plans
post JNNURM get concretized amidst highly opiniated stakeholders, it is
important to offer realistic narratives to the collective urban vision. This is
important at a time when JNNURM has left behind lessons of little role
Centre can play in incentivizing real change through conditional funding. While
some advocate for Centre loosening its control and allowing States to play the
lead, the Centre can contribute by creating models for the States to look up to
while planning their urban vision. The State or Cities by themselves have shown
little interest to various reforms including enactment of community
participation law, which was expected to create spaces for citizen’s
participation and reduce the rabid arguments between various stakeholders.
Yes, the
smart sensors and other Wi-Fi gadgets can advance comforts for those who can
afford to pay, but lack of imagination and undue haste on Janaki
Nair’s part is evident when she fails
to put forth ideas / possibilities to use techno babble for delivering more
equitable services (or basic minimum services) to all sections of the
population. In this debate, attributing markets as part of the problem, can
lead us to situation where State alone is the provider of (affordable) housing
and may end up with low quality (State Housing Board type solutions) housing
layouts that lacks imagination and creativity. Read in conjunction with our
poor performance on implementation
of development projects, our city dwellers will have to wait endlessly to
avail basic infrastructure. [2]
While land
is largely used as a financing instrument in creative urban development ventures,
the challenge over the years have been to demonstrate models that can be built
/ affordable for a larger section of population and do not end up as ivory
castles for those who have the willingness to pay. Thus the energies of those
who have an itching urge to detest the “smart brigade” need to concentrate on leveraging
the technology to reduce costs and increase efficiency in service delivery for water,
sanitation, transportation, health, education and safety to all its population.
Our lack of
collective imagination is evident in the 7000+ census towns that cannot assure
equity in service delivery to its urban population. Our Metros and the
splurging small towns have one thing in common; they fail to achieve benchmarks
for service delivery and exhibit huge variations and unreliability in the basic
services they provide to various inhabitants of the cities. At times, such
considerations are guided by technical barriers, at other times by social favoritism
to certain wards of the cities. There is a scope to leverage the technology to narrate
a more Indian version of smart ways to deliver urban services.
Smart cities have technology infrastructure as one of the enabler, other two obvious but seldom emphasized are Institutional and Human enablers. Thus while technology can provide real time data and information to take fair decisions, it cannot substitute a clear conscience. The moral obligations from a city can be met through an articulated dialogue and an open mind that values transparency, efficiency of resources and participatory decision making in true sense. If the smart gadgets can open up a possibility to probe deeper in black boxes of the urban service delivery systems it should be a welcome move.
Smart cities have technology infrastructure as one of the enabler, other two obvious but seldom emphasized are Institutional and Human enablers. Thus while technology can provide real time data and information to take fair decisions, it cannot substitute a clear conscience. The moral obligations from a city can be met through an articulated dialogue and an open mind that values transparency, efficiency of resources and participatory decision making in true sense. If the smart gadgets can open up a possibility to probe deeper in black boxes of the urban service delivery systems it should be a welcome move.
[1] http://ibnlive.in.com/news/full-text-finance-minister-arun-jaitleys-maiden-budget-speech/485007-3.html
[2] As reported in Pioneer “In what speaks volumes about poor performance
of the housing schemes for urban slum dwellers under the UPA’s key flagship
programme, JNNURM, just 8.15 lakhs out of the total 14.42 lakhs sanctioned
houses constructed from 2005 to June 2014” accessed at http://www.dailypioneer.com/nation/poor-show-of-housing-plans-under-jnnurm-exposed.html
