A holistic approach for SCM

With the simultaneous launch of the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), Housing for All and the coveted Smart Cities Mission (SCM) on June 25, 2015, it was a landmark day in the evolution of India's urban agenda. The message of convergence emerging from the common launch of all three programmes will hopefully be sustained in the future while implementing them.

The Smart City guidelines seek the convergence of different schemes like AMRUT, Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY), Digital India, Skill Development, Housing for All, construction of Museums funded by the culture department and other programmes connected with social infrastructure such as health, education and culture.

SCM, with an outlay of Rs.48,000 crore ($7.5 billion), is expected to enhance the quality of life in 100 cities, which will be identified over the next few months. Since the initial declaration of building Smart Cities in the BJP's election manifesto in early 2014, the Modi government's plans on this front have been taking shape slowly, and will need time to evolve.

The SCM guidelines highlight the need for a holistic approach to urban development. This will require an integration of physical, institutional, social and economic infrastructure. The guidelines provided by the government do not mention a specific definition of Smart City. There are, however, four key imperatives that emerge from the guidelines along with various other perspectives on smart cities obtained from both academic literature and deliberations in India over the last 15 months.

The first imperative is that a city needs to be sustainable in order to be smart. The Draft Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) released by the United Nations can be a useful and handy reference. The key principles emerging from SDGs include ensuring well-being, equity, efficiency, and embedding foresight in all plans and actions. The second imperative that emerges is the importance of imbibing the characteristics of good governance for achieving sustainability.

For example, transparency, accountability, participation and consensus-building are some of the key characteristics of good governance, which form the foundation for ensuring equity. The four imperatives mentioned above suggest that India needs to formulate concrete Terms of Reference (ToR) to realise the Mission's objectives, drawing from the initial ideas proposed in the Guideline.

The positioning of SCM can be seized as an opportunity to address the challenges discussed in this article and achieve the larger goals of urbanisation featured in the national development agenda. Streamlining the efforts of various organisations by ensuring that various aspects of sustainable urban development are addressed will be a critical factor in taking this Mission forward "smartly". (The writers are research scientists with CSTEP in Bangalore)

By Sujaya Rathi and Shrmoyee Bhattacharya