India's smart cities initiative started as one big attempt to correct all that is wrong with India's urban management. But a few stakeholders have taken to it just in letter, not in spirit.

There can be no double opinion on the crying need for drastic improvements to India’s urban infrastructure. With the world going towards new ICT-technologies and analytics to meet growing urban challenges, the current NDA government launched a high profile smart cities initiative, quickly after assuming power. Apart from the intention and vision, the high profile marketing around it, associating the prime minister’s name—as is common in all the new  plans of this government—was also hailed by many, as it would help generate a lot of interest among common citizens. PM Narendra Modi, right from his Gujarat days, has always emphasized on turning every government initiative to a mass movement.
 
However, unlike Swachh Bharat and Jan Dhan Yojana, where citizen sensitiveness is core to their success, much of Smart City roll out is highly complex project implementation, where problem solving is the core challenge.
 
And do not be in any doubt; unlike Swachh Bharat, the citizens will not be able to provide a large part of the solution; they can, at best, provide a helping hand. Much will have to be done by the government/civic authorities.  If that is not enough, much of the core problem is not always understood; often only symptoms are known.  And most of the solutions that are tried are point solutions to localized symptoms.
 
Smart City rollout—even if you ignore the more visible and high profile ICT part—is the first time most urban bodies and government will look at meeting urban challenges in an integrated manner, of course, with some tried and tested applications to beginning. These low hanging fruits—such as smart electricity meters—will not just solve a long-standing problem but they will also act as confidence building measures, as their impact will be seen comparatively faster. That is an important requirement in any such long-term project.

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But if the polls have large enough relevant sample, then the feedback could have really helped develop priorities and plans for cities. But looking at the polls, it seems the authorities have just wasted a great opportunity.
 
This is why.
 
One, the way questions have been asked by some city authorizes leaves much to be desired. How many citizens  would know what a “multi-modal integrated transport system” is. Was any awareness campaign done—online and offline? Online campaigns could have been done by the central authorities themselves.
 
Two, some authorizes have asked multiple similar sounding questions in multiple polls. Take Warrangal. One poll asks: Which of projects we should consider as high priority to make Warangal as a Smart City? In another, the question is:  Which of the following options according to you need high priority attention to transform Warangal in a Smart City? While waste management gets a thumb up as top priority in both, the next priorities are different in different polls. In one, corridor improvement and sewerage system get the votes; in the other, renewable energy and transparency that people have chosen as the next priorities after waste management. So, what should go to the planners as people’s voice?
 
Three, despite the ideas and choices emerging from a single agenda—circulated by the centre—most authorities have their own worded questions. Uniformity may not be a stated objective, but any researcher knows how dependent the responses are on the way the questions are worded. Some have asked for selecting simply “priorities”, some “features”, some “fields”, some “activities” and some even “projects”.  

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