Is Mr. Modi Obsessed by the word “SMART”?
Are you aware that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is planning to develop about 2,200 Smart Centres in India by the year 2030. Yes, more than “2.2 K” of Cities and Villages are planned to be develop as SMART, which will include almost all the Indian cities of over 1 Lakh population and will cover nearly 75% of the total urban population of India. And if this is the case then India would surely be the country with the highest number of Smart Centres in the world. India alone would account for over more than half of the total Smart Cities across the globe.
We all are pretty sure that’s not going to happen at any cost. But are these steps really required as of now? Do the government really need to take such steps, when even after 68 Years of Independence, India is still struggling for basic requirement of life- “Roti, Kapda aur Makaan”. That is still a topic of debate, but you surely will make a view point after reading this.
India’s first Smart City and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project, GIFT City Gujarat is almost on a verge to a ‘Big Flop’. Overlooking it Mr. Modi has further declared 100 Smart Cities and additionally a long list of other cities including Chandigarh, Amrapali, Bhavnagar, Junagadh, Naya Raipur etc. to be developed over the lines of smart city. Also Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) is planned to have another seven more smart cities such as Dholera, Surat Dream City, Shendra-Bidkin, Global City and others. In addition to the above HRIDAY, AMRUT and PRASAD schemes of the Modi government will develop 12, 482 and 12 cities respectively, to be sector-specific smart in context to the scheme.
Talking about rural area, under the Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAANJHI) scheme of Modi Government, all the 795 Members of Parliament have to adopt at least one village in both of the two phases of the scheme. Attending an inaugural function NGO Swarna Bharath Trust Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said “We understand that only Smart Cities won’t help, thus we have embarked on to make our villages smart as well.” That means a total of 1590 villages are to be made smart in the two phase of this scheme.
If we go by this list, the cumulative says that there would be as many as 2,200 Smart Centres in India by the end of the next decade. About 600 Cities and 1600 villages to be smart. This is what envisaged to be on paper. But let’s take a view of the status of India’s first Smart City- GIFT City, which is going to complete a decade by the end of this year.
Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) which was coined to be developed in 2007 by the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi. GIFT has an area of 886 acres which is about 130 times smaller than the size of Ahmedabad. That means a city which is very small city in comparison to any of the existing city of India. GIFT accommodates India’s first International Finance Service centre (IFSC) and also Gujarat’s first World Trade Centre. As of now two buildings have been constructed and inaugurated on 12 January 2013. But what after that? Even three years later to this inauguration and with all the hand-joined efforts of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi including his personal request to the corporates, GIFT manage to sell only 1/4th of the total built space until January 2016. Thus leaving the remaining 3/4th of the built space to be still vacant. This lead to collapse the entire plot of Financial Plan for the development of the GIFT-city, as the expected return on the saleable space were pushed back to only 1/4th. Thus, further development of the city got retired due to scarcity of funds.
I was offered an opportunity to work as an Assistant Manager at GIFT in Feb 2015, but the joining postponed to an un-identified future time. I was conveyed that the company is undergoing financial breakdown and I must not keep any further hope for working at GIFT. One year has passed to my appointment, but still the management at GIFT is clueless about a confirmed joining date. Meanwhile, I worked with Navi-Mumbai Smart City Project and was closely associated with Indore and Bhopal Smart City Proposals. But I am truly worried now about the future of Indian Cities and the amount of people’s hard earned money the government is going to invest/ waste over these over-ambitious projects. Do the government really need to take such steps at this point of time when a large part of our population is still struggling for basic needs?
There may be two possibilities. Either Mr. Modi himself is ambiguous about the term Smart City or probably he is obsessed by the word “Smart”. This obsession is similar to the one we Indians have towards westernization. In a large democracy like India, it’s up to the people, whether to quietly accept this imposed westernization or they resist it and further re-define a completely new approach towards making a truly modern Indian.
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