might fare well in infrastructure but not in terms of human resources or natural resources. Hence the
assets and limitations of each city have to be dealt with specifically, and not generally. The competitions under the mission helped in identifying the assets and liabilities of each city.
Problems of sanitation
Among the nine cities in Andhra Pradesh, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam were given a four-star ranking in the Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework (CSCAF) 2.0 in June 2021. The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs had released the CSCAF results where a total of 126 cities including 100 smart cities and 26 other with a population of over five lakh, had participated in the assessment. The participating cities were analysed on five key parameters with28 indicators.
The first edition of this assessment was conducted in September 2020. The Smart City awards were given across the themes of social aspects, sanitation, governance, economy, culture, urban environment, built environment, water and urban mobility.
Vizag had received a four-star rating in its overall performance. The city bagged a five-star rating in urban planning, green cover and biodiversity; a three- star rating in energy conservation and green buildings; a three-star rating in mobility and air quality; another three-star rating in water management and a five-star rating in waste management.
Despite this, there are areas in these cities that continue to fight for basic amenities. For example, in Sairam Nagar in Visakhapatnam, the residents are deprived of sanitation and development. The area is situated in Gajuwaka which is one of the core areas of the city and a common sight in the area is broken roads and drains, pools of water even wastewater across residential areas.
Another area named Srama Sakthi Nagar is ridden with water-filled roads and a foul smell all the time. This area is also one of the smart city colonies of Visakhapatnam. Despite the existence of the colony for decades, not much has changed here and the residents are still deprived of some of the most basic facilities of a city that includes proper roads, sufficient lighting facility, working drains, etc. These areas are cases in point where the smart city mission has not achieved its goal and a lot of planning and work needs to be done to ensure one and all reap benefits of this smart mission.
The need for a competition
Once a city is listed as a Smart City, a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to implement the smart city mission is created that is headed by a full-time CEO. The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) programme used a competition-based method as a means for selecting cities for funding, based on an area-based development strategy.
The cities competed at the state level with other cities within the state following which, the state-level winner competed at the national-level Smart City Challenge. Eventually, the cities that obtained the highest marks in one particular round were chosen to be part of the mission.
The competition focused on area-based development to transform existing areas, by retrofitting and/or redeveloping. This includes developing the slums into a better-planned human settlements. The primary goal is to improve the livability index in cities by bringing about changes in the infrastructure variables.
The competition also encouraged development of wellplanned and fully serviced new areas (greenfield) in the cities to accommodate the rapidly expanding population in urban areas.
Also, proper and timely application of smart solutions would enable cities to use technology to improve infrastructure and services. So, a comprehensive development in a planned manner would improve the quality of life, create employment and enhance incomes for all, especially the poor and the disadvantaged, leading to inclusive smart cities.
Cities withdrawing nominations
Like any other government initiative, even the Smart City Mission could not escape being politicised. This happened at multiple occasions and in myriad ways but the most prominent way being states withdrawing the nominations of their respective cities in the mission.
The majority of the cities chosen for this mission are from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, followed by Punjab, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan, and lastly, Haryana, Jharkhand, Kerala, Odisha, and Telangana that have one or two cities each in the smart city mission.
West Bengal had withdrawn the nomination of New Town which is an extension of Kolkata. The government claimed the mission promotes inequitable development. In August 2016, West Bengal government rejected the centre’s ‘Smart City Project’ and instead announced that it will develop those selected cities along the lines of its own ‘Green City Project’.
The government officials from the state claimed that there were two primary reasons for the decision. One was, according to them, the skewed nature of investment from the state and the centre. The second being, the compulsory imposition of water tax in smart cities and that was notacceptable to this state.
In Maharashtra’s Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, the opposition parties that held power in the municipal corporations opposed some of the conditions of the schemes especially the one related to the constitution of the Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) and withdrew their participation. Mumbai’s Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), India’s richest corporation with a budget of a whopping INR 25,000 crore, had opted out of submitting a proposal to be part of the scheme. According to the civic body, it was not confident of handing over the implementation to the SPV. This would eliminate or diminish the role of the municipal body and that was not acceptable to them.