The Smart Cities Mission (SCM), launched in 2015, seeks to improve the quality of life in 100 cities and towns of India. Overall, its progress has been uneven, with many cities yet to achieve the desired levels of transformation. This report evaluates the first five years of the Mission, and draws lessons from its successes and failures. It discusses the physical and financial status of the projects taken up so far, and identifies the most crucial challenges—administrative, financial, and technology-related—that impede progress.

....

There has indeed been progress on a wide variety of smart projects in the 100 cities and towns chosen under the Smart Cities Mission. The completed projects are providing social and economic benefits, especially to the marginalised sections of the populations of these cities. However, the study also shows that several cities are lagging in project implementation. No doubt the COVID-19 pandemic has impeded progress, but there are also various administrative and financial reasons for the underperformance.

In some cities, the SPVs set up to implement the Mission are not functioning well due to inadequate managerial, technical, and financial capabilities. Deficiencies were observed in data handling and its analysis, levels of digitalisation, fund mobilisation, release, and utilisation.

This report makes the following recommendations:

  • The SCM should be a long-term programme, not restricted to five or six years as currently envisioned. Indian cities are at a low level of development, and given the quality of governance, and the social and economic problems facing these towns and cities, any transformation will take a long time. Critics of the SCM’s performance so far should realise that rapid change is impossible when local governments are financially strapped and large sections of society are poor. But governments too should refrain from making unrealistic promises.
  • More projects should be identified to meet city requirements. During the current monsoon season in 2021, it has been seen that drainage systems in many of the selected smart cities have still not ensured proper management of rainwater.
  • Training programmes should be organised to build managerial and financial capacities of the staff employed by the SPVs and urban local bodies. Training needs must be properly identified. SPVs should be supported with adequate funds, trained personnel, and proper equipment.
  • Empirical studies should be undertaken of the SPVs in cities that lag behind in implementation to find out why. Available data shows that, for instance, not a single project in Amaravati, Bhagalpur, Muzaffarpur and Shillong, has been completed.
  • The Centre, and more so state governments and urban local bodies, should make a greater effort to mobilise funds. More revenue needs to be generated through efficient taxation, and alternate sources of financing found. The potential of municipal lending needs to be tapped. In the US, for example, the North Cascades Bank provides finance (from simple terms loans to complex borrowing solutions) to local governments across the state of Washington to finance capital projects and equipment.1 Similarly, Ameris Bank offers financial support to many US cities, towns, and counties.2
  • The process of fund transfer from the Centre to state governments/urban bodies to SPVs should be made easier.
  • Greater efforts should be made to maintain infrastructure assets created under the Mission.
  • The role of the Integrated Command and Control Centres in cities should be expanded. In cities such as Moscow, such centres are effectively providing a variety of services, including traffic management, health, and security services.3