CASE STUDY 1: SMART CITIES, URBAN MIRAGE
The Government has launched one of Prime Minister Modi’s pet programmes, namely to set up 100 "smart cities," along with plans for upgrading 500 towns and cities (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation or AMRUT), and a pledge to provide housing for all by the 75th anniversary of Indian independence in 2022, a target that requires an improbable 20 million housing units. Taken together, these programmes with an outlay of around Rs.2 lakh crores ($33 billion) including contributions of the States, with eventual expenditure many times that amount if the expected private sector investments are included, constitute perhaps the largest development initiative announced by this Government and highlights how important the programme is for this government and its leadership. The Scheme also underlines the government’s belief in urbanization as "an engine of economic growth," especially of a certain kind. The government’s Concept Note released in November 2014 laid out the goal very clearly: the Note said that "smart cities" are meant to respond to increasing urban migration and to cater to the "neo middle class… [and its] aspiration of better living standards." Clearly, there is no illusion about who is expected to benefit from this Scheme. This new policy not only embodies an urbanization-led development pathway but also a vision of what these new centres of modernization and economic growth would be like. The "smart cities" programme outlines a specific urban model that other cities would aspire to, while requisite infrastructure would be laid in the 500 AMRUT cities as a stepping stone to become smart cities sometime in the future. Let us see what exactly this "smart city" model is and who would benefit from it. Elitist Gated Enclaves We have put the term "smart cities" within quotes is because the term is being used very differently in India compared to generally accepted terminology internationally. In developed countries, smart cities are those which already have good if not advanced infrastructure and which applies information and communication technologies (ICT) on top of this for more efficient use of resources and facilities especially energy, water, transportation, delivery of civic services, improved urban governance with greater interactive engagement of citizens. In this sense, the use of the term "smart city" in India is clearly an over-reach. In the first place, as the government’s Concept Note makes clear, the 100 "smart cities" will not cover entire cities as they stand today, but only small, isolated enclaves within the city or, in a few cases, greenfield or newly built enclaves or "sub-cities" on the outskirts. While lip-service is paid to providing a range of economic activities and employment opportunities to all classes of people, there is a clear emphasis on "investors and professionals," and providing them with "a very high quality of life (comparable with any developed European city)" (emphasis given in the original Concept Note). Of course, 24x7 electricity supply, quality water supply and recycling, clean air, good educational and health care services, entertainment and sports facilities, dependable security, high speed interconnectivity, fast and efficient urban mobility as promised for "smart cities" are not attributes specific to smart cities but should be available in all Indian cities, not only in some select areas supposedly providing
"European-standard" lifestyles. But the Concept Note makes doubly clear that the 100 "smart cities" in India are being set up as special and isolated luxury zones for upper-income groups and the corporate class, what are known as "gated localities," by promising "simple and transparent on-line business and public services that make it easy to establish a business and run it efficiently without any bureaucratic hassles." There is token acceptance that skilled labour too would be required but, other than that, the promised "smart cities" appear to be residential and commercial islands for higher-income professionals and corporates with provision for some essential workers and service providers. It is left unclear if the latter will reside within or outside the "smart cities." Evidence that ‘smart cities" in India are being conceived as rich enclaves is available in the few examples of "smart cities" already initiated even before the Scheme came into being. The first example is the Gujarat International Fin-Tec (GIFT) city, a "smart" greenfield business district located between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, initiated when PM Modi was Chief Minister of Gujarat. GIFT is visualized as a global financial services hub with state-of-the-art communications, infrastructure and transport links to the main city. Wave City near Ghaziabad on the periphery of Delhi is another example, a greenfield up-market residential township being built by a private real estate developer in partnership with IBM. This elitist orientation of "smart cities" is also illuminated by other indications. While high quality education and health services are spoken of, much of these are expected to be in the private sector, including a 50-100 acre "medi city" in each "smart city" for tertiary health care. All services are expected to be provided by private or PPP entities operating on full cost recovery including capital costs, a longtime favourite neo-liberal World Bank prescription. Presumably, the urban poor will look after themselves outside the "smart cities" which have no place for them. Against best practices Whereas the government has been making much of giving States a lead role in the process of selection and project formulation, it is clear that the Centre is the main if not sole arbiter, especially since it controls the funds. Funding itself is curiously structured. Although the "smart cities" as envisaged are necessarily infrastructure heavy, the plan envisages that most infrastructure will be taken up either through private investment or through PPPs, which the State governments and concerned urban local bodies (ULBs) will raise, with the Central Government’s contributions in the form of Viability Gap Support. This despite the PPP models in urban infrastructure having totally failed in India so far, for example in the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), UPA’s predecessor to the AMRUT Scheme. Changing the name from Jawaharlal Nehru to Atal Behari Vajpayee will not change this reality! Besides burdening the ULBs with this onerous responsibility, there is little or no empowerment, capacity building and decentralization of responsibility to ULBs, internationally considered to the cornerstone of modern urban development, and which lies behind the many success stories in China or the smart cities of Barcelona, Singapore, Seoul or Yokohoma. In contrast, in India all "smart cities" Projects will be implemented by special purpose vehicles (SPVs) manned by unelected bureaucrats and consultants, by-passing the elected Urban Local Bodies and directly undermining the 74th Amendment to the Constitution aimed at strengthening democratic and representative urban governance, just as the 73rd Amendment supports Panchayat Raj Institutions. Flawed Concept of Urbanization In fact, the very perspective of the present dispensation on urbanization is deeply flawed. The "smart cities" Concept Note argues that urban centres are "engines of growth," and that if previous governments had realized this, India would have been a developed country by now. The Note repeats the usual correlations between increasing rates of urbanization and GDP growth, and projects that urban areas will contribute 75% of GDP by 2030 as against 60% currently. But is growth really caused by urban growth? There is substantial evidence to indicate that urbanization and rural-urban migration in India result from complex processes involving downturn in returns from agriculture, rural distress, industrialization and job creation in or near urban centres. The present government seems to believe in urbanization as an end in itself, as shown in its earlier aggressive push for a Land Acquisition Bill when it argued that agriculture was in serious decline and farmers would be better-off selling their lands and giving up agriculture altogether, and presumably moving to urban areas. But will there be decent jobs in urban areas, especially in big cities, for all rural migrants? Job creation has stagnated in India even in periods of high GDP growth at the peak of the liberalization wave, and "jobless growth" is a well-recognized phenomenon especially when advanced technologies are involved. If there is rural distress, should that not be addressed directly, instead of condemning farming as a lost cause and advising farmers to move to cities? For all the rapid urbanization in India, projections show that even in 2050, as much as 50% of India’s population will be in rural areas. Will this population have no future? No doubt urbanization is increasing at a fast pace in India. But a large part of the expansion of urban population is taking place in small towns. There are over 6,000 towns including Census Towns in India, in which much of the rural migration has occurred, and the vast majority of which are completely ignored by the "smart cities" and AMRUT Schemes. In India, the real problems in its urban centres are poor infrastructure including garbage and sanitation, sewage, drinking water supply, poor housing and lack of employment opportunities. Even in Delhi, India’s capital, close to half of urban households do not have sewage connections or piped drinking water, only half of domestic and industrial waste waters are treated before discharge into the Yamuna, and around half the population live in slums and unauthorized settlements. The "smart cities" programme ignores all these and instead chooses to build a few isolated enclaves for upper-income sections in major urban centres as glamour projects for the rich. The 2014 UN Report on World Urbanization Prospects notes that rapid and unplanned urbanization has in fact led to "urban sprawl, high levels of pollution and environmental degradation, together with unsustainable patterns of production and consumption patterns," thus compelling a global agenda to forge a new model of urbanization "that integrates all facets of sustainable development, to promote equity, welfare and shared prosperity in an urbanizing world development."
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