Key points on Smart Cities Project

Key points in support

• It primly focuses on transportation, e-governance to mitigate the current misery.
• Water, energy and waste management systems, the basic infrastructural necessities will be dealt with in addition to transportation.
• This project seems to be overlooking giving impetus to making villages also smart on the lines of the concept called Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA).
• From an environmental point of view, the ‘Smart City’ programme will help reduce pollution levels in cities.
• When thousands are migrating to the cities in search of work in the wake of a deepening agrarian crisis, the move is bound to halt this tide.
• There will now be more avenues to look for rather than flock to the metropolitan cities; congestion and pollution can be reduced.
• In these cities, adequate public spaces, pedestrian plazas, traffic-free roads, electric vehicles are on prime agenda.
• There must be pedestrian plazas that are traffic-free and where free electric operated vehicles are in abundance.
• This project will work with local residents, associations and NGOs in urban centres for development activities while setting up “smart” cities and rejuvenating existing urban centres.

Key points for criticism

• To make 100 cities across India is ill-conceived especially when a majority of the population lives in villages.
• The initial move of government must be development of Smart Village not smart cities.
• The outlay of Rs. One lakh crore for this project should instead be diverted to make villages more liveable.
• Development of Smart Cities in turn will lead to greater rural-to urban migration.
• Instead, the government needs to rejuvenate rural life and focus more on solving grass-root problems.
• The vulnerable section will be far from active inclusion in this project.
• This project has a direct connection with the new land acquisition ordinance which aims to please the corporate audience.
• To make urban living more liveable, more inclusive and a driver of economic growth, government has to plan by taking a holistic view of living in harmony with nature.