Smart Cities Need Right Policy

By G Krishna Kumar Published: 22nd September 2014 06:00 AM

 

Smart city has become a buzzword, thanks to PM Narendra Modi’s vision of creating 100 smart cities. The Kyoto-Varanasi partnership agreement that was signed during the PM’s visit to Japan has only increased the curiosity about smart cities.
The Japanese have managed to keep the cultural heritage of Kyoto and other cities intact while ensuring best-in-class infrastructure. Who can miss the magnificent Kinkaku-ji temple? The city has an excellent mix of well-maintained new and old-age structure, and the clean Kamogawa river. Kashi is planned to be developed as a smart city while preserving its heritage. Getting Kashi anywhere close to Kyoto will be a herculean task. Let us hope to see some visible difference.
Before we look at Indian smart cities, let us understand the global scenario. By 2050, 70% of the world’s population will live in cities. It is established that cities directly contribute in increasing national GDP and also improved productivity and innovation. The concept of smart cities is aimed at solving the rapid urbanisation challenges. Using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as the core focus, smart cities are expected to combine a sustainable future with continued economic growth and job creation.
Smart cities can be created by adding “smartness” into existing cities or building new cities with best-in-class physical infrastructure and Internet connectivity.
Examples abound on the smart city initiatives in Singapore, Spain’s Barcelona and South Korea’s Songdo. In fact, China plans to move over 250 million people to smart cities by 2025.
Singapore, which already boasts superlative infrastructure, is taking “smartness” to the next level and aims to become the first “Smart nation”, through the Smart Nation Platform or SNP. Essentially, a plan in improving policy making and implementation along with a seamless feedback mechanism from the citizens to help in continuous improvement and providing better quality of life to the people.
This involves high-end sensor-based ICT infrastructure to collect data from various places in the city, analyse the data and provide real-time information to people—often called “situational awareness” for the public. It could be insights on traffic congestion, parking space availability or weather or any other useful information.
In India, while many private players have initiated smart cities, Gujarat International Finance Tec-city or GIFT is the most visible government initiative. GIFT is located close to Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar. The land area of 3.58sqkm is more than twice that of Tokyo’s Shinjuku or Paris’ La Defense. GIFT’s green belt area is over 20 times that of London’s Dockyards.
The government has identified four corridors—Delhi-Mumbai, Bangalore-Chennai, Amritsar-Kolkata and Vizag-Chennai—for building smart cities. Details from the urban development ministry’s draft concept note on the 100 smart cities is awaited. Union urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu has indicated that the state governments will play a dominant role in the formation of smart cities. A recent news report estimates an annual funds requirement of `35,000 crore for the smart cities. We will require India-specific measurement criteria and a smart city index that reflects the basic infrastructure and how “smart” a city is. Also, it is important that rural areas closer to the smart cities directly benefit from the new infrastructure.
Isn’t it is intriguing that the most planned city in the country, Chandigarh, is not already a smart city? Now, “New Chandigarh” is being planned to be developed as a smart city.
Building new cities is necessary, however it could take decades to complete. Hence, the government must focus on improving basic infrastructure in the existing cities and towns.
Broadband connectivity alone will not suffice. The government should accord paramount importance to improving transparency and creating a less corrupt system. Importantly, we need basic civic amenities to be improved and a reliable public transport system.
Can the existing infrastructure be better utilised? For example, Bangalore’s deplorable daily commuting woes are well-known. Roads are choked and at the current pace of its implementation, no one is sure when the Metro can go beyond joy rides. While we wait for it, what prevents the state government or the railway ministry from introducing local trains using existing broad-gauge lines connecting east and west Bangalore as most of the infrastructure is in place?
Using ICT, it is easy to provide traffic updates on mobile phones. But, won’t we love a hassle-free commute through better infrastructure, than being informed of a daily 45-minute jam? The current infrastructure is so fragile that a downpour will leave most cities in absolute disarray.
Once we have the basic infrastructure, “smartness” can be added through ICT—creating surveillance systems for public safety, providing efficient emergency services, adding intelligence or improving e-governance.
The government’s responsibility in creating the right policy framework and implementation plan for building smart cities is clear. However, what is most important and often overlooked is the need to change our mindset/attitude towards the city/town we live in.
There are cases in many cities/towns, where the government has created simple infrastructure like tiling the footpath or footpath grills/safety grills to help pedestrians. In most cases, the structures are damaged/destroyed or go missing. Essentially, someone has used it for personal gains. Why do we have difficulty in maintaining public structures and why we can’t care for them?
Perhaps, we should learn from the Japanese. For example, across the country mirrors are fixed at road junctions and blind turns for the safety of motorists—the mirrors remain never go missing. Why are the Japanese sensitive about public assets? Is it love for their country or that they are a disciplined race? We need a change in our mindset to appreciate and safeguard public property. It is appalling to see educated people being indifferent. A sustained awareness campaign is needed starting with the schools to enforce the right attitude. More interactive sessions with bureaucrats or ministers on the lines of the recently held PM-students session can help reinforce the message.
Smart cities can provide tremendous economic growth. However, improving basic infrastructure in the existing towns and cities is paramount. Most importantly, we need to demonstrate improved civic sense for building a smarter India!
The writer is adviser,Centre for Educational and Social studies, Bangalore.
Email: krishnak1@outlook.com

 

Wake-up call

Published on Thursday, 18 September 2014 11:09 . LEAD EDIT PAGE ARTICLE - DAILY POST INDIA


G Krishna Kumar


J&K, Uttarakhand tragedies set tough task for India’s disaster management team

It was ‘land of gods’ Uttarakhand in 2013 and now ‘the land of paradise’ Jammu and Kashmir devastated by the flood fury. Over 250 people are confirmed dead and tens of thousands rendered homeless, their lives completely shattered and future thrown into disarray. The estimated infrastructure loss is over Rs 6,000 crore. Such 547 calamities have grossly exposed India’s absolute lack of preparedness. We can blame the government for not enforcing regulations, but people should equally be held responsible. Why do we encroach land and build illegal structures? This lackadaisical attitude is deplorable.

While we commemorate the tenth anniversary of 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean,  we should know that India is among the most disaster-prone countries in the world. Data suggest that close to two-thirds of the country is vulnerable to earthquakes and droughts. As much as 76 per cent of India’s coastline carries a risk for cyclones and tsunamis.

We are sure to witness many more major or minor disasters. Reports indicate that accumulated losses from minor disasters would be same as those from major disasters.  Natural disasters occur across the world and impossible to avoid. It is, however, all about preparedness and reducing the impact. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) was initiated after the 2004 tsunami. There are questions around NDMA’s ability in planning and implementation. Every time we witness a major disaster, there is a blame game between NDMA and the state government. Post-Uttarakhand crisis, the state government set up disaster management funds and multiple conferences were held.  Such activities should be sustained beyond knee-jerk reaction with time-bound action plan for disaster preparedness.

NDMA’s India disaster resource network provides an exhaustive online inventory of resources like life saving boats, critical medical supplies, etc, needed for disaster response. There is no data available for many states, districts including Jammu and Kashmir. The data for Uttarakhand is the most up-to-date, but for states like Karnataka, the data last updated were 10 years back. There are only 12 life jackets available in Uttarakhand’s Rudraprayag district, which was one of the worst hit districts during the 2013 flood. Only two trauma specialists identified for the whole of Mohali district in Punjab, while in Jalandhar district, only one general physician has been identified.  The data is indeed alarming and just proves how woefully underprepared we are.

Can we learn from other countries in developing flood resistant cities and towns?  The Netherlands has developed flood control system that can resist 100 year floods. Japan, one of the most disaster prone countries, has created a resilient tsunami management system.  Australia and New Zealand are among the best in terms of disaster management. How about involving the premier technology institutions in the country to come-up with feasible disaster resistant homes? In this age of technology, why don’t we have top class weather forecasting systems that can help in accurate predictions? In terms of alerting the general public, we should implement a simple disaster alert and early warning system like the one in Japan. This is definitely possible considering that we boast of 75 per cent mobile penetration in the country. Maybe learn from some of the south Indian cities where, patrol vans are used as public address system to alert people. Creating awareness and educating general public about natural disasters is largely missing in India. For example, the concept of disaster supplies family kit is not seen, also we need regular and well publicised mock drills.

In general, natural calamities and rescue operations are covered extensively by media, while post-disaster recovery does not get similar attention. Which state has the most robust post-disaster recovery set-up in the country? It is vital not to ignore the recovery effort experiences from previous disasters. Do we have any lessons learnt from the 2004 tsunami or the 2013 Uttarakhand rebuilding efforts? NDMA should embark on creating a platform for experience sharing in-order to replicate best practices. What are benchmarks for rebuilding in the country? Let us take Japan’s example. Within 10 weeks, electricity and water connections were completely restored after the major earth quake in Kobe. Infrastructure was rebuilt in two years as that alone is the basis for all kinds of recovery activities. When can we see such benchmarks in India?

The UN’s Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) review report states that following disasters, public put greater pressure on administration resulting in improved governance and accountability. The rebuilding efforts must take the environmental aspects into consideration; participation from local communities is very much needed. It is eventually a fine balance between economy, people and environment. Even after 67 years of independence, it is embarrassing to see such a primitive disaster management set-up in the country. We need concerted effort to minimise the impact of natural disasters. Both pre-disaster preparation and time-bound post-disaster re-building system should be accorded paramount importance. It is imperative that the NDMA be strengthened with best-in-class technology and a state-of-the art weather monitoring and alerting system should be implemented for a safer India!

(The writer is Adviser, Centre for Educational and Social  Studies, Bangalore. Views are personal)