Indian States Gear Up For An Era Of ‘Smart Cities’

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s one of the most ambitious dreams is to establish 100 Smart Cities across India. To realise his dream, the state governments and other stakeholders have started taking baby steps. They have chalked out the criteria for the selection and ranking of cities hoping to build ‘a new Chicago every year’ in the country by agreeing to implement innovative financing models and urban governance reforms.

These agreements were reached following intense discussions at the two-day ‘Consultation Workshop of state governments and stakeholders on smart cities.’ The final recommendations were presented at the concluding ‘Plenary Session,’ which was chaired by Babul Supriyo, minister of state for urban development and housing & urban poverty alleviation.

The state governments and other stakeholders have suggested that the basic eligibility conditions to participate in the ‘Smart City Challenge’ competition should include a city development strategy, progress under Swachh Bharat Mission, timely payment of salaries to municipal staff, information and grievance redressal mechanism as well as e-News Letter.

They’ve also added that the ranking of these cities will be based on parameters such as: self-financing ability (25% weightage), institutional systems and capacities (25%), existing service levels and committed plan of action for three years (25%), past track record in implementing reforms (15%) and the quality of vision document (10%).

Indian states have suggested two sets of reforms separately for small and metropolitan cities, land monetisation, quick progress towards e-governance and online service delivery, integrated geographic information system (GIS)-based master plans, policy reforms, fixed tenures for mayors and municipal officials, improving revenues through 100% collection of taxes and user charges etc.

In order to enable the state governments to take up the challenges under smart cities initiative, Minister of States Babul Supriyo has urged the state authorities to devolve necessary functions, funds and functionaries to the urban local bodies.