Pardigm shift in Indian planning through Smart city development

Smart Cities Mission drives a paradigm shift for the urban planners as it involves the application of smart solutions and implementation of smart infrastructure to improve the physical, social, economic and institutional infrastructure of the city. This not only enhances the urban planning sector but also provides enough opportunities for better investmet in the city and employment opportunities for various skilled people that drives growth of the city holistically.

Cities are engines of economic growth for the economy of every nation including India. The Smart Cities Mission aims to develop 100+ Smart Cities in India over the next 10-15 years in order to ensure a decent quality of life for the growing number of urban dwellers. The four pillars of comprehensive development are – institutional infrastructure (governance, planning and management), physical infrastructure (water, power, sewerage, etc.), social infrastructure (sports facilities, parks, theatres, etc.) and economic infrastructure (infra required to promote investment and generate livelihoods). The four pillars use technology in a sustainable and resilient way to produce employment and quality of life for citizens. This attracts skilled people and investments into the city, thus creating a virtuous cycle where growth drives growth.

Smart Cities Mission

The Smart Cities Mission marks a paradigm shift by applying smart (intelligent) solutions in core infrastructure services to meet urban challenges keeping citizens at the centre. The mission is being implemented through ‘area based’ approach envisaging three models.
In retrofitting, an area consisting of more than 500 acres is developed with an objective to achieve benchmarks given in guidelines. Redevelopment envisages an area of more than 50 acres which is completely developed from scratch with innovative financing including land monetisation, beneficiary charges, and monetising and enhancing FSI.
Greenfield development envisages developing an area more than 250 acres around cities to address the needs of the expanding population. How Smart City India is a Paradigm Shift in Modern Planning

Smart City incorporates all the earlier planning principles

The smart city development takes into account all the earlier planning principles and has built in new ideas for the city development:

• The Smart City concept by selecting the Garden City Concept and the New Towns concept has adopted ‘Green’ concept.
• The redevelopment scheme of the green city takes into account the Modernism concept and the new urbanism.
• The retrofitting idea incorporates the principles Central Business District and Concentric Circles approach.
• It involves the community in decision making including developing the Vision statement and SWOT analysis.

The entire planning and implementation of the Smart city uses convergence of various central and state schemes. The steps followed are:

Firstly, the city needs complete and integrated planning rather than for particular sectors as captured in the 500 Cities, HRIDAY and SBM and Smart Cities Programme. It also ensures holistic city development and alignment of objectives with supplementary missions such as Swachh Bharat Mission and Online Grievance Redressal Mechanism from Digital India. A Smart City also showcases how the best citizen-centric facilities can be made available and will catalyse similar activities in the rest of the 500 cities.

AMRUT follows a project-based approach in which the aim is to improve governance, sanitation, water-supply, waste management, urban mobility and other such urban infrastructure projects at the Pan-city level. The AMRUT and SBM will complement the Smart City Mission by funding core physical and institutional infrastructure in the City. Secondly, all cities do not have the resources and capabilities to become ‘Smart’; but basic needs of city dwellers have to be fulfilled. While 500 Cities Programme and SBM will address the basic infrastructure needs and a certain minimum resource allocation will be made by the Central Government under the AMRUT and SBM Programme, for earning a place in the Smart Cities Mission, the Cities l had to compete with each other in what is called the ‘Challenge’. This was based on the concept of cooperative and competitive federalism and encourages cities to continuously improve their performance and strive to attain the benchmarks specified in the Mission. This is the first time that an element of competition had been introduced for participation in a national programme.

Thirdly, the approach of Smart Cities Mission is not prescriptive in nature and recognizes that ‘one size fits all’ approach is inadequate. Therefore, cities will be allowed to focus on sectors and projects most relevant to the needs and priorities of their citizens.

Agenda 21 principles applied to Smart city India Mission

Think globally, act locally urges people to consider the health of the entire planet and to take action in their own communities and cities. Long before governments began enforcing environmental laws, individuals were coming together to protect habitats and the organisms that live within them.

These efforts are referred to as grassroots efforts. They occur on a local level and are primarily run by volunteers and helpers.“Think Globally, Act Locally” originally began at the grassroots level. However, it is now a global concept with high importance. It is not just volunteers who take the environment into consideration. It is corporations, government officials, education system, and local communities.

The entire planning of the smart city is based on the local level planning for the global cities of tomorrow. The citizen participation is key in the present smart city development. The area based model is the key for the city development. The smart city approach takes into account the local level planning with citizens involvement so that a particular city makes a model inside its own city and then the entire city is developed based on the model developed in the city with people’s involvement.

This is first time in the world that a country is planning to develop its cities on the principles of the agenda 21 “Think Globally, Act Locally”.

In Indian town planning it is important to understand the idea “think globally, act locally” as urban management and development greatly impacts the surrounding environment. The ways in which the plan is initiated is vital to the health of the environment. Corporations need to be aware of global communities when planning for their cities with new initiatives. Not only do corporations need to be aware of global differences, but also urban and rural areas which plan on expanding or changing the dynamics of their community. As stated – Addressing the complex urban environmental problems, in order to improve urban livability through Urban Environmental Strategies (UES), involves taking stock of the existing urban environmental problems, their comparative analysis and prioritization, setting out objectives and targets, and identification of various measures to meet these objectives. The present smart cities development keeps all the above parameters in mind.

What planning schools need to do

The major cities in India are going through the Smart City planning approach which is very different from the Master Plan Approach, Zonal Plans and Outline Development Plans made by the Indian Cities. The students of the panning schools need to be taught about the changing planning pattern in the Indian cities and the convergence agenda being taken up in planning the Smart Cities.
The teachers also need to get associated with the new smart cities being developed in several states so that the knowledge of the smart city development is explained to the students. The other way is to take the students on study tour to one of the selected smart cities so that the students are involved in the implementation of the smart cities and understand the process properly.

Conclusion

By the end of 2019 every State/UT in India will have at least one Smart City going through the implementation phase. Every State/City will get a chance to then understand from their own cities and can develop the other cities in their respective State/UTs by using the example and the process involved in the smart city development.