The need for a smart revolution in India

Developing smart cities is a stated objective of many governments and corporations worldwide. Smart cities meet the dual objectives of sustainability and improvement in the quality of life. In addition, as the global population increases, the world must also move towards smarter use of available resources.

Smart concepts integrate a diverse set of assets, and expertise in the areas of business management, behavioural science, political science, electronics, computing, mathematics, economics, city administration, and project management.

Indians love the farms, but they don’t have much

With a population of 1.25 billion, India’s economic activities are centred primarily on six large and another 10 mid-sized cities. With one-third of the landmass of the United States and four times the population, it is evident that the economy riding on agriculture is not very lucrative. Eight hundred million people in India do what eight million people in the USA do. In addition, about half of the Indian villagers do not have land, contributing to agriculture by labour.

This is one of the key reasons for poverty in India—too much dependence on agriculture! As technology pushes the magnitude of the economies of scale, most of the small farmers will be marginalised. Half an acre is too small for ownership of tractors, water pumps, high-quality seeds, and cold storage.

Too much pressure on just a few cities

Every minute, 25–30 people migrate to major Indian cities from rural areas in search of better livelihood, better lifestyles, or just to save themselves from hunger. With this momentum, about 843 million people will live in cities by 2050.

All the large Indian cities have problems of overpopulation. Since cities enjoy the ecosystem that is needed to run a business, the manpower also gets concentrated there. In addition, since manpower is already concentrated in these cities, the new businesses do not take the risk of setting up at other locations. This is a vicious circle, leading to over-compression and over-utilisation of these cities.

Decentralisation of economic activity is critical

In a growing economy, new investments are essential for social equilibrium, economic prosperity, skills development, and for overall wealth creation. But what about the location of these investments? One solution is to expand and improve the existing cities and continue making new business investments there. But, to what size should we grow these existing cities? What is an optimum size of an Indian city?

Ideally, we need to distribute economic activity into many more areas of the country. This will reduce pressure from the dozen major cities and develop newer areas for economic activities where people from the same region can be productively employed. They do not need to learn new languages and can eat their own food.

The tier-2 cities don’t cut it

Unlike Europe and the USA, smaller cities in India look distinctly different in terms of roads, water supply, waste management, and sidewalks. Most of them are inadequately equipped to handle modern businesses. Large truck movements are practically impossible inside these cities.

These cities need a significant transformation to make them capable of hosting manufacturing or even services businesses.

The 100

The 100 existing cities have been picked strategically from all the regions of the country to ensure adequate representation and coverage. These are established centres of commercial activities, have a relatively higher population, and have the potential to grow into strategic business centres in the region.

The pillars of this smart initiative

The Smart Cities initiative revolves around four pillars—governance, physical infrastructure, social infrastructure, and economics—all with the citizen at the centre.

Governance: With many antiquated laws from the British and Mughal era that exploit and humiliate the citizens, the current governance structure discourages citizen engagement and transparency. A governance framework based on trust and respect needs to be installed to ensure active participation from the citizens along with the government. With a focus on e-governance, India can improve the management of public resources, enhance citizens participation, and automate the functions of the municipalities using modern telecommunication and computing capabilities.

Physical infrastructure: A structural overhaul of physical infrastructure is required as the large cities can adequately serve only a fraction of the population. These include roads, ports, railways, buses, parks, parking, pavements, electricity, water, sewage, sanitation, and gas.

Social infrastructure: While India produces entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers, and academicians that compete with the best in the world, we cannot attribute their success to the education system. A quest for knowledge and science is embedded in India’s traditions and despite the poor education system, a large number of students excel. An overhaul of the system is needed. Similarly, while many of India’s medical centres compare with the best in the world, the healthcare system for 1.25 billion is ranked 112^th in the world. An even distribution of quality healthcare across the country is needed.

Challenges

Finance: The first major challenge is financing. While the national government is investing in kicking off the process, the most significant investment for these cities would have to be managed by the local government. Development of each centre will cost between Rs 1,000 and 50,000 crore—a very significant amount for the Indian municipalities. It is expected that once the blueprint is prepared, a large number of solutions providers will bid for various areas of the project and will receive revenue from future earnings.

Execution capabilities: While India has an evolved system of business practices and established engagement models, skills needed for this new area are missing. In addition, the visioning and objective-setting exercise that sets the end state of the development will be a challenge—Indian societies have several conflicting priorities and a final decision would be a stormy affair.

Education and skills: Only about two percent of the workforce in India has undergone formal skill training as compared to 75 percent in Germany, 68 percent in the UK, and about 10 percent in China. Given the aggressive growth agenda, there is a need for additional 110 million skilled human resources in the next five years.

Conclusion

Smart is a democratic concept that helps the poor more than the rich by enhancing the overall livability of the region. In the resource constraint society like ours, we must find smart ways to improve lives of persons with average income and make services of the government accessible and affordable.