What exactly are Smart Cities? This is not another one of those pipe dreams t
hat politicians talk about and that never amount to anything concrete. Smart here does not mean imposing IT and a pseudo empowerment of already empowered.
As proposed, “Smart Cities” is a literal term. Exactly what should have happened decades ago: good urban planning. An intelligent way to shape the urban landscape for the future of India… in other words, Smart Cities.
Decentralization: This is not central planning. Each smart city will develop in its own way. To tackle the problems as they feel fit, and to develop the opportunities most suitable to them.
States identify the candidate cities, and a certain number are selected from each. Then the cities are allocated a generous yearly budget for the next five years, with implementation monitored.
Accommodation: A slum city with shiny towers is what we call a metropolitan in India. A successful city needs to be affordable. The plan calls for cheap high rise housing for the poor. Given the scarcity of land, a BOT model is proposed, lowering the cost of buildings to the residents.
Hygiene: Access to cleanliness is a luxury in India. Large water treatment plants, underground sewage, upgraded solid waste collection and disposal are to be prioritized.
Transport: Traveling to work is a big waste of time and money. It is also the biggest source of pollution in cities. A “smart” planning of business and residential areas can reduce the commute for many. Rapid mass transport helps reduce the congestion even further. (See BRTS systems, cheaper than metros to build and to run)
Information technology: Technology aids in lowering the cost of communication. It makes the administration work better and hopefully use less people.
Gandhi has long misled us with the emphasis on the rural. The only way to improve the lot of the rural population is to make more of them urban. Move from agriculture to services and manufacturing. Services sector has potential to absorb a lot of low skilled workers and give them dignity, while making the lives of the educated easier and more productive.
There are hurdles to be crossed, of course. The road is long and tortuous, with many pitfalls. But at least it is the right road.
//Move from agriculture to services and manufacturing.// If villages become ‘smart cities’ and every farmer is encouraged to move from agriculture to services and manufacturing, then hopefully our food will also be manufactured in some factories built on the ex-rural-now-urban land, will it not be?
The idea of smart cities is not bad per se, but if done at the cost of poor and rural people, bad….very bad! ‘Sabka saath, sabka vikas’…..does it now mean ‘sab rural people ka saath aur sab urban people ka vikas’?
mam, as we have read, the defination of rural and urban is quite vague, any land mass with large concrete structures is now categorized as urban and roof top farming is not a cup of tea for everyone, as the name suggested “Smart cities” not urbanization,as far as agriculture is concerned, its a fact in india that its overpolulated with not so efficient methods and output, so a large section had to come out of it and not everyone can be an employed engineer/doc/mba now a days so a service sector or a production sector job is not a bad option, as it helps him to generate much stable and higher resources, even if half the current agriculture sector leaves it they have more than enough to( to be near about 30% of our total population) which is adequate to produce the needs if efficiently done, more and more people will move to rural areas and by current status only we can have replicas of mumbai and delhi, which have slums and mansions seprated by a road in near by future in not so yet metropolitons but soon to be( the traffic and sanitaion of b’lore is quite a piece of cake for the media)
its now 21st century, and more have been discovered(for use of mass) in past 50 years than in past 1500, so now we have better resources, planning and more importantly a visionary leader right now among us, lets try to move forward
Look, even I agree that farming done with obsolete, inefficient techniques on small land holdings is not rewarding for the farmers any more and they need to move to other more monetarily fruitful occupations. But for that they need to be skilled and educated first. Secondly, if they sell their fertile land, it must go to a person who is genuinely interested in agriculture, not to someone who would build another concrete monstrosity over it.
We do need food, and we do need farmers to grow food for us. So we need to make their lives socially respectable and financially rewarding at their own places, not force them to give up the only work they know, and live in penury in an urban ghetto.
As for affordable high rises in smart cities, life in a metro/big city is becoming unaffordable even for upper middle class people, do you really think a farmer family moving to a city would be able to pay 15-20 lakh for a two room flat, pay the maintenance+property+multiple other taxes and allied expenses with his limited income in service or manufacturing sector?
IMO, govt should aim to provide better amenities and educational and employment opportunities in villages only instead of destabilizing them from their fertile lands to build more concrete structures, howsoever beautiful, for the urban rich.
Mam, 50 crore people are growing food for 125 crore. Agriculture cannot sustain so many jobs. The highly productive methodology of agriculture everyone talks about relies more on machines and less on people. We need to bring people out of agriculture.
Plz move from agriculture to manufacturing nd services sector is a very wrong statement. India has still not able to identify the opportunities and the potential the agriculture has to offer. The problem with india is of fragmented land and majority of the farmers do perennial farming nd not as major source of income. Given the vast amount of land india has as compared to israel who has done tremendous progress in agriculture sector. India has a huge potential and could generate huge employment in agriculture and related activities. So please dont discourage to people to stop farming. At the end of the day we donot eat computers mobiles or papers. We have to eat vegetables fruits nd dal