Road to Smart Cities not smooth

•  Across the world, the stride of migration from rural to urban areas is increasing. By 2050, about 70 per cent of the population will be living in cities, and India is no exception. It will need about 500 new cities to accommodate the influx.
• To make new cities which should be capable to provide adequate facilities, India has launched its ambitious Smart city mission in 2015.
• Recently a joint report released by world economic forum and PwC on India's smart cities mission. This report highlights the challenges faced by smart city mission.

Highlight of this report:

• India has approved its ranking in "ease of doing business", but still obtaining licenses and approvals takes a long time due to bureaucratic constraints.
• Land acquisition is fraught with delays and uncertainties.
• In most cases, when an urban development project becomes involved in a dispute, activities are stalled, as are vendor payments. With poor cost recovery and high legal costs, companies engaged in disputes find it difficult to sustain their activities.
• There is lack of resources with ULBs (urban local bodies) which can play a crucial role in implementing the urban rejuvenation programmes. There is paucity of funds which urban local bodies are facing. The revenue collected by ULBs in India is less than 0.9% of the gross domestic product, significantly less than that of Brazil (7.4%) and South Africa (6%).
• Also, city governments are the least-prepared to execute the programmes from among all the stakeholders, which include the national government, state governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and academic institutions.
• The report also highlights sector-specific problems, such as water management, where around 50% of water production is lost due to theft or leakages during the distribution process, the lack of metering, and low user charges.
• There are other infrastructural issues plaguing India’s urban centres, such as the unavailability of 100% power, the poor quality of roads, and the paucity of social infrastructure in healthcare, and safety and security.
• So in order to address these challenges , Reforms are needed in the areas of land acquisition, dispute resolution, permitting processes, information availability and procurement processes to accelerate the development of smart cities.
• Collaboration among multiple administrative entities is necessary if smart city projects are to be completed within budget and timeframe.
• For ULBs to function independently, the devolution of power to determine and collect user charges and local taxes, along with capacity development, are necessary. They also need to streamline internal processes by adopting e-governance and by making data-driven decisions.
• Single-window systems that ease the permitting process will accelerate project execution, reduce cost and time overrun, and improve intra- and inter-departmental collaboration.
• For sectors that deal with physical infrastructure, reforms will be required to establish independent regulators, ensure metering, develop skilled resources, enforce collections (of user charges and taxes) from large defaulters and adopt integrated planning.

About Smart cities project:

• The concept of smart cities originated at the time when the entire world was facing one of the worst economic crises. In 2008, IBM began work on a 'smarter cities' concept as part of its Smarter Planet initiative. By the beginning of 2009, the concept had captivated the imagination of various nations across the globe.
• Countries like South Korea, UAE and China began to invest heavily into their research and formation. Today, a number of excellent precedents exist that India can emulate, such as those in Vienna, Aarhus, Amsterdam, Cairo, Lyon, Málaga, Malta, the Songdo International Business District near Seoul, Verona etc.
• The India Smart Cities Challenge is a competition designed to inspire and support municipal officials as they develop smart proposals to improve residents' lives. In 2015, cities competed in the first round – with the best proposals receiving funding from the Ministry of Urban Development.
• Smart Cities focus on their most pressing needs and on the greatest opportunities to improve lives. They tap a range of approaches – digital and information technologies, urban planning best practices, public-private partnerships, and policy change – to make a difference.

By: Vishal