Is it a smart selection of cities?

The Indian government has selected 20 cities for its smart cities mission on January 28^th. There has been much hue and cry regarding the selections of these cities out of the total 98 cities contesting for it. 

Smart cities are nothing but cities with good public transportation, better connectivity, good sanitation and proper waste management, inclusion of IT services for some solutions, better utilities and civic amenities. The ultra smart cities will see the inclusion of IoT (Internet of things) which is likely to revolutionize the world in near future just like the Internet did in late 1990s and early Y2K. This would enhance the urban mobility and congestion free transport, energy saving methodologies and factors related to healthcare.

The government claims to develop these cities at par European standards. For your information Barcelona, New York, London, Nice and Singapore were the 5 smartest cities of the world in 2015.

Well, Rome was not built in a day and thus the mission of building smart cities at par European standard would not be easy for the government to achieve for years to come. The fund of $7.5 billion is likely to run short for the 100 cities planned to be developed as smart cities. However in order to cope up with the shortage of funds the government plans to raise funds through public private partnership and the funding would also be done by both central and state governments. 20 out of these 100 cities will be getting the funds in the first round. 40 and 38 cities would be included over the course of next 2 years respectively.

One of the common factors among these 20 cities is that around 30% of the cities are either port cities or close to port cities and all the cities are among the already well developed cities of India in terms of education, IT services and manufacturing industries.

This initiative is closely connected to PM Modi’s Make in India campaign and it can prove to be a driving force for make in India and startup India campaign. India was ranked 54 in LPI (logistics performance index) according to the World Bank while Germany topped the list in 2014. India has lowest performance in terms of infrastructure and custom clearance among other criteria for deciding the LPI rankings. The logistics performance of India needs proper nurturing for a better growth of economy and more investments. This performance can be fueled up by smart cities project only if it gets to run smoothly.

Looking at the current economic situation of India where export is racing downwards and INR is sinking, it becomes important for the government to take some quick and smart steps in order to attract investments in short run.

Had the government chosen other less developed cities then it would have certainly required much more time to develop the basic infrastructure of those cities and then make them able to attract investments. It would be a time taking process which could lead the economy to sink further. Thus, the choice of government to build major trading cities as smart cities in the first round seems to be a wise decision.

However, if we analyze the scenario utterly by political point of view, we would find that more than 50% of the cities belong to states where the ruling party is either led by BJP/ NDA or it has good relation with BJP but on the other hand BJP ruled states like Jharkhand and Goa could not compete in the first round.

Let us have a quick look at the features of some of the cities from this list.

Bhubaneswar: It was declared the best city to do business in India by the World Bank in 2014. It has good road, rail and air connectivity, good education facilities and IT hub having rich content of natural resources and quite close to a port city.

Surat: A well connected city of Gujarat. It is sometimes called as diamond city of the world and textile city of India.

Jabalpur: A city of MP rich in natural resources like bauxite, iron ore limestone etc. and quite famous for marble. It is an important manufacturing hub for many products including arms and ammunition for military and paramilitary forces.

Vishakhapatnam: Port city located in Andhra Pradesh, a key economic zone and a home to many IT/ ITES and manufacturing industries. It is famous for steel plants, education and tourism and trade through water.

Other cities too have their own specialties and are leaders in one or another field. The cities according to their ranks are Bhubaneswar, Pune, Jaipur, Surat, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Jabalpur, Visakhapatnam, Solapur, Davangere, Indore, New Delhi Municipal Corporation, Coimbatore, Kakinada, Belgaum, Udaipur, Guwahati, Chennai, Ludhiana and Bhopal.