Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) organised an event to commemorate 6 years of the three transformative Urban Missions vis. Smart Cities Mission (SCM), Atal Mission for Urban Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U).
Urbanization is a form of social transformation from traditional rural societies to modern urban communities. Urban transformation expresses entire strategies and actions used to improve the economic, social, physical, and environmental conditions of damaged and collapsed urban areas by comprehensive and integrated approaches. For example, in Pune, India's first worker-owned waste-pickers’ cooperative is helping to create an efficient waste-collection system that reaches more residents and showing cities how to incorporate informal workers into a modern economy.
The approach of urban transformation becomes important due to following reasons:
Population growth: The population of Indian towns is expected to increase from 282 million to 590 million in the next 20 years. By 2050 the proportion living in urban areas is expected to reach 66%.
Employment opportunities: Due to industrialisation, majority of people migrate into urban areas to seek a better livelihood as ample job opportunities in cities are available in all developmental sectors such as public health, education, transport, sports and recreation etc.
Economic growth: India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and its high economic growth is due to expansion of towns and cities. Indian cities are likely to contribute to 70% of India’s GDP by 2030.
Sustainable development: The urban transformation puts the cities on a central stage for accelerating change towards local and global sustainability and resilience which are enshrined in the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
challenges in effecting urban transformation:
Institutional:
✓74th amendment act has been implemented half-heartedly by the states which has not fully empowered the Urban local bodies (ULBs) functionally and financially.
✓ Public monopoly, organizational inefficiency, technical flaws in the form of high leakages, lack of preventive maintenance, poor accounting as well as over staffing and lack of autonomy have led to failure of the public sector to provide adequate service delivery.
✓State and national planning institutions lack qualified planning professional. o Lack a modern planning framework (decentralised planning) which limits effective land utilisation and cities’ abilities to grow in accordance with changing needs.
✓Growing trend of declining ratio of revenue generation with the ULBs.
Infrastructural:
✓ The rapid growth of urban population by natural and migration ways has put heavy pressure on public utilities like housing, sanitation, transport, water, electricity, health, education and so on.
✓ Lack of investment in urban infrastructure and capacity building.
✓ Despite high economic growth, India cities are the centres of high income inequality and poor quality of life. In 2019, New Delhi and Mumbai ranked 118th and 119th respectively, on the Global Liveability Index that covered 140 cities.
Environmental:
✓ Urban areas are at higher risk to floods, earthquakes owing to low density and overcrowding. Urban areas are becoming heat islands, rising air and groundwater pollution and persistent water crisis.
✓ Example, pollution in Delhi, floods in Mumbai and Chennai indicate poor urban planning and management.
Social:
✓ Issues of lack of resources, overcrowding, unemployment, poverty, and lack of social services and education habitually lead to many social problems and crimes including violence, drug abuse, human trafficking, sexual assault, child labour etc.
Other recently taken steps to further strengthen above missions:
Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework (CSCAF) 2.0:
It aims to provide an overarching roadmap to formulate, implement and monitor urban climate actions in India. o CSCAF 2.0 consists of 28 diverse indicators across five sectors.
Data Maturity Assessment Framework 2.0:
Every year, the Smart Cities are being ranked so that Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) continue to invest in developing and strengthening their data ecosystems. It assess the data readiness of 100 smart cities on the systematic pillars across 5 components namely policy, people, process, technology and outcomes.
ICT initiatives under Smart Cities:
ICCC Maturity Assessment framework (IMAF): It is a self-assessment tool kit developed to assess the maturity of Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCC) across key aspects of functionality, technology, governance and citizen/stakeholders engagement. It helps cities identify areas of improvement in their ICCCs to deliver better services to the citizens.
Smart City ICT standards: It facilitates interoperability between products in a multi-vendor, multinetwork and multi-service environment that exists in a smart city.
India Smart Cities Fellows Report:
It promotes youth leadership and usher vibrancy in the design of India’s urban future.
TULIP (The Urban Learning Internship Program) Report:
It is a platform to connect graduates to ULBs and Smart Cities to co-create new solutions for our cities. o It was launched in partnership with All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
NIUA (National Institute of Urban Affairs) Knowledge products:
CITIIS (City Investments to Innovate, Integrate and Sustain) Program: It was launched in partnership with the French Development Agency and the European Union in 2018. It has a novel approach of developing demonstrative projects while furthering the agenda of sustainability and innovation in urban infrastructure.
Handbook of Urban Statistics: It is the first of its kind document with a special focus on Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) in Indian cities. It captures the data related to the nature and cause of disability, the socio-economic condition of PwDs and their access to various physical and social infrastructures.
Cities Insights Report: It investigates urbanization trends in Indian cities from the lens of marginalized populations, persons with disabilities, elderly, children and women. This initiative is under the ‘Building Accessible Safe Inclusive Indian Cities’ (BASIIC) Programme at the NIUA, New Delhi. NIUA is an autonomous body of MoHUA, tasked to bridge the gap between research and practice on issues related to urbanization.
Approach to accelerate urban transformation in future:
Urban governance: With cities growing beyond municipal boundaries, having fully formed metropolitan authorities with clearly defined roles will be essential for the successful management of large cities in India.
Integrated planning and management: It should include the needs of the marginalized sections including their residence, health, water, transportation, and other amenities at affordable prices.
Finance: Devolution must be supported by more reforms in urban financing that will reduce cities’ dependence on the Centre and the states and unleash internal revenue sources.
Trained human resource: Special knowledge and expertise is needed in urban planning of urban areas, especially in hill states, coastal regions, riversides, and disaster vulnerable areas.