Smart City a western concept, should be inclusive, says ex-CS

The concept of Smart City is western and needs to be adaptable to the Indian context to be successful, former chief secretary and urban development expert A Ravindra has said.

“It should also be inclusive and include the poor and the middle-class and not just the elite. It should be affordable and sustainable too,” he said, speaking as chairman of the Smart Cities India Foundation (SCIF) which organised a seminar on smart cities at the World Trade Center here on Wednesday.

An ambitious initiative of the Central government, the Smart City project has been allocated Rs 48,000 crore in the Union budget. The Smart City concept has become important because the number of Indians living in urban areas shot up to 377 million in 2011 from 76 million in 1961 and is likely to go up to 600 million by 2031. There is competition between five cities—Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad—to become the Smart City Capital of India, Ravindra added.

Bengaluru has an edge over other cities as it has a high per capita income, more than $10,000 millionaires and 60,000 super rich. But the Smart City concept can’t be only for this section. “The concept has to address the socio-economic inequities for it to sink deep and be sustainable in the city. There also has to be re-development of old areas. Then there has to be focus on concepts of alternative living like solar energy and rainwater harvesting. All of these will enable us to root the Smart City concept in the Indian reality,” Ravindra said.

The former bureaucrat expressed anxiety about public and private partnership (PPP). “In domains like Smart City, the PPP has not worked to a great extent. We have to try it out on a smaller scale before moving to the larger domain. But so far, the PPP has been disappointing. We have to find ways to refurbish it.”